Once upon a time in the delta quadrant
by Amousca
Summary: Open to suggestions for better title. Voyager meets a new species of alien who's piloting organic vessels. So, when they first met mechanic vessels, the main weapon they developped was hacking skills, and so this is the story of one of their hackers.
1. Borg vessel on a parallel course?

_**Once upon a time in the delta quadrant**_

_OK, so I guess this deserves quite an introduction. First, it was the very first fan fiction I ever wrote. Yes, yes. I have been addicted to Star Trek (and more particularly Voyager) for quite some time, and one day I thought, hey, surely hackers still exist in 24th century, right? What if the borg were hacked? And this is how this story is born._

_Alright, I know, it's tremendously non-cannon with the series. Those borg-lovers among you will argue to the top of your lungs that a borg cannot be hacked, and I'll give some credit to your argument. But hey, I wrote this totally non-cannon, for fun, and I thought if I had so much fun writing it, than why not put it on the net and see if others have fun reading it! (Please please please reviiiiiiiew please)_

_So, without further delay, once upon a time in the delta quadrant…_

Chapter I. Borg vessel… on parallel course?

"Ensign Kim to captain Janeway," the Starfleet icon emitted.

Janeway touched her insignia, and asked what was going on.

"Our long-range sensors are detecting a borg vessel, on a parallel course, on the edge of sensibility."

"Yellow alert," Janeway stated with authority, as she always did. "I'm on my way to the bridge, Harry."

"All right, Captain. Tuvok and Chakotay are coming too."

So _Voyager_'s captain left her table in the mess hall, offering apologies to Neelix "duty calls", and made her way towards the bridge. When she reached it, Tuvok and Kim were running additional scans; Chakotay was visibly awaiting their report.

"Report," she asked, coming forward on the bridge, towards her seat.

"It keeps its parallel course," Kim said; he didn't understand this. "This is strange; this doesn't seems like their usual behavior."

"I agree," Chakotay said. "What do we do about it, captain? Should we try to hail them?"

"Did you ask Seven what she thought about this?", Janeway asked.

"I called her," Kim answered. "She's in astrometrics, trying to see if there's a change in their course."

"Doesn't she have a clue why they behave like that?", Janeway asked. This was starting to make her nervous.

"She said that they may think we can't detect them; maybe they think they are spying on us," Tuvok reported.

Janeway raised an eyebrow. She thought for a second, then she decided: "Stay on yellow alert. Inform me of any changes. Call me again in two hours if there is no change. We will try something at that moment."

She left. Chakotay followed her, saying: "Kim, you have the bridge."

ooo

"So," Janeway said as she entered the bridge, "they're still there."

"Yes, Captain," Kim said, still at his console.

"News from Seven?"

"No changes in their speed or course," Tuvok informed her. "Lieutenant Torres is reporting some informatics problems in the communication system."

"What kind of problem?", Chakotay asked.

"Lieutenant Torres cannot initialize a teleport sequence. She is working on it."

"Any link with that borg vessel out there?", Janeway worried.

"No; usually they tap into the main system, and shut everything down when they want to send a message," Kim answered.

"Yes," she agreed.

She stayed in her seat, for a moment. She was seated diagonally, as always, and was rubbing her thumb and forefinger together, in a gesture she always did when uncertain or nervous. Then she said: "Tom, what speed are we going at?"

"Warp 6, Captain," the pilot answered.

"And the borg vessel?", she wondered, turning to Kim.

"Warp 6 too, captain."

"Ok. Tom, jump at warp 8. We'll see what they do."

"Yes, ma'am."

Tom drove in a few buttons, checked a few controls, then he pushed _Voyager_'s engine to warp 8.

"Any changes from the borg?", Janeway asked. The room was filling with tension as Kim was checking the data from the astrometrics lab.

"They… They've jumped to warp 8 too, Captain," Kim answered finally. His worry leaked through his professional voice.

"Are you sure?", Chakotay asked. He definitely didn't understand a thing about this whole story.

"Yes, sir. Seven is loading me this data from the astrometrics."

Chakotay and Janeway looked at each other. Chakotay waiting for her decision, Janeway for maybe a suggestion or two. Being the captain sucked, some days.

"Mister Paris, slow down to warp 4," Janeway ordered. "Tell B'Elanna to get everything right in engineering, and before the borg get a chance to set an intercepting course."

As soon as _Voyager_ was down to warp 4, Kim got a transmission from Seven, still in the astrometrics lab.

"Captain," Kim immediately repeated, "they are still at warp 8, moving away from us. Two minutes before they slip out of range."

"Stay on yellow alert for three more hours," Janeway ordered. "Chakotay, Tuvok, with me. Call Seven from the astometrics, and tell her we'll meet in the ready room."

Tuvok, Chakotay and Janeway took their seats in the ready room. They sat, and then Chakotay began:

"Captain, what do you think they're doing ?"

"I have no idea," she admitted. "And that's what worries me the most. Tuvok, as a security officer, you are trained to face every security problem. Don't you have a single idea of what's happening here?"

"I do not know, Captain. There was obviously a borg vessel following us. I do not understand their behavior, however, they do not seem to act as borg. We seem out of danger for now, captain. They are out of range for our sensors, but we are out of range of their sensors too, if Seven is still up-to-date with borg technology. If we set a different course, they will have no way to detect us."

Right then, Seven came into the room, looking focused and serious as always.

"Suggestion noted, Lieutenant-commander," Janeway acknowledged Tuvok's comment. "Seven, we could use your help here."

"Captain?"

"Were they borg? I mean, do you understand their behavior?"

"I'm not sure, captain," Seven exposed. "Maybe they got an emergency call and had to go. I don't know."

"Right, I considered that too. But, why setting a parallel course in the first place?"

"I… I have no idea, Captain," Seven confessed.

"Ok. So we just had a borg vessel following us, now it is gone without any explanation, we don't understand and we have no idea of what's going on," she summarized. "Dismissed."

Tuvok and Seven went out, but Chakotay stayed, and waited until the others were out.

"Captain," Chakotay said, "if we _do _change of course, we will no longer be in danger; we don't need to care about their strange behavior."

"I know," she sighed. "But I dislike not to understand."

Chakotay smiled. As he was leaving, Janeway said:

"Tell lieutenant Paris to change course of 20 degrees and to resume the course at warp 6."

He exited her ready room and went back to the bridge, acknowledging her command with a nod of the head.


	2. Rough first contact

_Hm… you know, I would really appreciate a review… even just one :-( I'll agree with you if you say it's not state-of-the-art fanfiction, but hey… surely it's not so bad it doesn't even deserve a single comment? Please, I just want to know that someone has actually read this._

_Ah, so, now the mystery of the strange borg behaviour is discovered…_

Chapter II. Rough first contact

It had been three hours and twenty-six minutes since the borg vessel had slipped out of the range of sensors. Yellow alert had been terminated soon before. Janeway had resumed her work shift, with Tuvok, Chakotay, and an auxiliary pilot and engineer.

It was one of those many ordinary shifts. The mood was relaxed and calm on the bridge. Janeway and Chakotay were sharing opinions about new data on some type of nebula, the auxiliary pilot was doing routine tests of the engines and thrusters, the engineer was scanning the area, and Tuvok was taking the patrols reports.

Then:

"Captain," the auxiliary engineer started. He was reading the sensor data.

"Yes, ensign Burton?"

"There is an alien vessel right ahead of us. An unknown species, warship. Heavily armed, not very fast. Stopped."

"Life signs?", the captain asked.

"Five hundred thirty-nine, stable. We are in visual range."

"Seems like they are waiting for us. Yellow alert, prepare phasers and shields to 50. On screen," she concluded with her usual authority.

The vessel appeared on screen. It was a huge vessel, pointed but very bulky. There also was a massive excrescence of hull over the main body of the vessel; seen in profile as it was, it was a reversed V shape. The hull was very smooth and dark; it seemed to be looming over them against the stars. The color was the most unsettling shade of blue; it was impossible to name. It seemed blue, but it was most certainly _not _blue. The outlines of the ship were hard to make out because of the color. The ship rather looked like it did not belong to the background of space and stars, not like it was there. There were bands of violet on the fuselage, and a few black spots. It looked like an organic vessel, but it was hard to be sure, and organic vessels were rare enough, even in this strange quadrant of the galaxy.

"They're standing on red alert", Burton reported. "Shields at maximum, phasers ready."

Paris and Kim rushed in at the same time and took back their stations.

"They're hailing us," Kim warned as he took his place.

"On screen," Janeway ordered.

The other vessel's captain came on screen, very clearly, but in the same strange set of colors as his vessel. _He looks like a Felidae_, Kathryn thought distractedly. His eyes were almond-shaped, the pupil slit vertically, and his nose and ears were triangular. His face was mostly fury, but he did not look like an animal. He would even have been attractive, if not for his very angry look. It was obvious even for humans that had never seen his species before.

"Shtate yourr identity," he ordered, very authoritarian.

His voice was strange; it had its own sound and accent. His translator was probably old or slightly malfunctioning.

"I'm captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship _Voyager_. I'm sorry if we are in your territory," the captain began with a smile.

"You arre not," the other answered, still not accommodating. "Ourr territorry is weeksh away frrom herre. You arre not heading towarrd it either. We shushpect you to give asylum to one of ourr warr crriminals."

"I can assure you we are not," Janeway answered.

"Lowerr yourr shields sho we can run shcans on you," the other retorted.

Janeway opened her mouth to answer, but she never had the time to answer. Kim announced:

"Captain! They're getting into the primary control, and they're trying to disable our shields."

Janeway cut the communication with the other. Half the lights of the bridge blacked out.

"Ensign Kim, is there anything you can do about that?", a very annoyed Janeway asked. "B'Elanna?"

"I can't get access, they have disabled our security codes," Kim said, not stopping to type. "B'Elanna is trying to get to manual control."

"Captain," Tuvok observed in his ever-steady voice despite the rising tension, "we are receiving a communication. For the engineering."

"From where?", Janeway asked in a tone suggesting that the answer was more than obvious.

"From… nowhere, Captain," Tuvok answered, letting out an incredulity he was not supposed to feel.

"They're seconds away from breaking through our security to shut off the shields!", Kim exclaimed.

"The communication has opened itself," Tuvok noted.

"What? How?", Janeway asked. She did not know which way to turn.

"I have no idea, Captain," Tuvok answered.

"Shields are holding!", Kim triumphed.

"Holding? How is that possible?", Chakotay wondered.

"They're not holding, they are rising to maximum," Kim added with clearly less enthusiasm. "Hell, what's going on?"

"I would really like to know," Janeway noted. "Full damage report."

Lights went back on, alert signals stopped, only to start again as red alert set itself on.

"We are getting back our security access, we are set on red alert, shields are to maximum, and phasers ready," Kim stated.

"Who did that?", Janeway asked.

"Captain, another communication is opening itself," Tuvok noted. "It's for the bridge, this time."

"I'm the one who shet you on rred alerrt, Captain," said another unknown voice, coming from a person that just appeared on screen.

Everyone turned annoyed glances towards her. It was obviously a woman of the same species as the man in the un-blue warship. Her face was bare, contrary to the men earlier, but the small nose, the triangular ears, the almond-shaped eyes clearly identified her as the same species.

She was not looking at the image-capturing device, and was frenetically typing on a keyboard that was in front of her, but could not be seen on _Voyager_'s screen. The background was familiar, there was something in this green mist and all those shadowed areas, but no one cared to look closer. When the woman spoke again, her voice was unsteady, because she was distracted as she continued to type.

"Captain Janeway, I need yourr help. I didn't let them hack thrrough yourr shields. I've put a lock on yourr shields with shterrika algorrithm, they will neverr get thrrough it. They'rre trrying to get to yourr weapons rright now. I can keep them out of it, but I can't use shterrika algorrithm, sho I can't crreate an inshtant lock, I'm with gerrsh'kal code. They'rre trrying to kill me, you musht help me!"

"I will if I can," Janeway answered warily. "Are you the war criminal they talked about?"

"Yesh. I hacked thrrough a level 12 shecurrity database."

Janeway looked at her, skeptical, but surprised too.

"Why did you do that?"

"I wanted to shee if they kept data about hacking codes and algorrithms orr hackerrs." At that, the feline-looking woman shrugged, as though she had not given the thought much consideration before actually doing the deed. "Captain, I'm fashter than theirr hackerr; I can hack thrrough theirr shields beforre they do with yourr weapons. If I hack them, you can firre at theirr weapon head contrrol; I will load up a database about the vesshel anatomy to you."

As she said that, a transmission started to arrive on Kim's console, who had not even gotten a request for a communication. It was truly a vessel's plan, but in a strange file format, which took _Voyager_ a good while to convert – well, speaking of _Voyager_'s computer, a good while was somewhere around the range of the tenth of microsecond.

"Please, Captain," the feline woman said with a supplicant tone, "I will explain afterr, help me _now_!" There was a moment of silence. She added: "You can't do anything againsht them anyway, if I don't help you. Please; I will have to shtop to prrotect yourr weapons to hack thrrough theirr shields. When I do sho, be prreparred to firre theirr head contrrol. Please."

"Tuvok, can you target the weapon head control? Is the database clear enough?", Janeway asked, not taking her eyes off the feline woman.

"Yes, captain."

"Paris, invasive manoeuvres."

"Yes ma'am."

"We're going to help you," Janeway said with a smile to the feline woman.

"Oh, thank you," the other said with a huge sigh of relief. "Now I begin to hack them."

Immediately a chaos of alarm signal started to blink all over the bridge.

"Somebody is attempting to disable the weapon control," Tuvok warned.

"Teleporting is offline," Kim reported.

"Astrometrics readings are erroneous," Seven said through her insignia.

"One motor unit is damaged," Tom stated. "Overloading the others to compensate."

Four minutes stretched themselves nearly to eternity. Alarms sounded, reports were buzzing, each attempt to compensate destroyed as soon as it was done. Then, a triumph cry from the feline woman:

"Oh yeah! I got it!"

"Sensors are reading shields to maximum," Kim observed, sceptical.

"I've hacked yourr rreadings earrlierr; they'rre frrozen on theirr rreadings of 45,65,3," the feline woman explained. "Trrusht me, theirr shields arre offline."

She granted Janeway one penetrating regard, hands resting still for the first second since she appeared on the screen.

"Tuvok, arm one phaser."

"Armed and locked."

"Fire," then said Janeway, with still a little apprehension, although nothing transpired in her determined exterior.

There was an explosion, then a moment of total silence, except for the red alert signal.

"Kim, report."

"Same readings," the engineer admitted with regret.

"I told you I frroze yourr shenshors," the feline woman repeated, as she started to type once again. "I'm rreading dirrect hit, weapon contrrol down to 13. They won't trry to tarrget you with sho bad contrrol, they would rishk killing themselves. You have thrree minutes and a half beforre they can hack thrrough my gerrsh'kal code, and get theirr shields back online."

Janeway's answer was immediate: "Tuvok, target their main shield generator."

"They do not seem to have one, Captain," the Vulcan said with deeply raised eyebrows.

"They don't have one," the feline woman concurred. "That vesshel is orrganic and everry tissue is prroduching itsh own shield."

"Then, you have three minutes left to explain yourself," Janeway told her.

"Captain," Kim interrupted, "the vessel is hailing us."

"On screen," Janeway said. "And link them to our friend too."

The feline woman looked irritated, to say the least. Had she been human, she would have grown pale. But she waited until the communication established itself, which happened very quickly.

"Merrrshika!", the un-blue vessel's captain exclaimed when he saw her on screen. "I should have known it was you who hacked them and ush!"

"What choiche did I have? I didn't want you to kill me!", she answered with a dose of aggressiveness.

"You arre a warr crriminal!", the other roared. "You musht be judged forr yourr crrime and killed forr what you know!"

"I didn't know what I would fall on when I hacked thrrough that database!", the woman retorted with the same fire.

"That'sh exhactly why it'sh a level twelve shecurrity database!"

At that moment, they started to insult each other in a language full of crackling and growls that no one on _Voyager_, obviously, was able to understand. Strange fact, everyone could her their mother tongue, as though their translator was not working at all.

"Excuse me," Janeway cut in then. "Would you care to explain why is _Voyager_ involved in this fight?"

"Captain," Merrrshika said with a certain supplication, "I want to go with you on boarrd _Voyagerr_. I'm requeshting ashylum."

"Captain Janeway, will you prrotect a warr crriminal?", the other captain asked, looking like he was laying a blame.

"If I may speak," Chakotay chimed in.

The feline male captain and Kathryn both gave him the right to speak.

"If I understand correctly, her crime is to have accessed a top secret database? Is that all? She didn't injure or kill anybody?"

"No, she didn't," the feline man answered, with suspicion.

"So, miss Mershika, you want the refugee status on _Voyager_," Chakotay went on.

"Yesh," she answered with real enthusiasm. "I know that you come frrom verry farr away…"

"So," Chakotay cut her, "you want to leave your people and your home world, and come with us?"

"Yesh, shirr! Thish way, I…"

Chakotay cut her again: "Captain, if you let her come with us, what she knows will no longer be a threat for you. Is that what you had in mind, miss Mershika?"

"Yesh, shirr!", she answered with a smile that was pulling her almond-shaped eyes even thinner.

The feline captain seemed to consider for a moment, then he asked:

"Wherre arre you heading?"

"We are going home, in the alpha quadrant," Janeway told him.

"Oh," the other captain said, his face changing to a definitively more sympathetic thoughtfulness. "You arre a long way frrom home."

"Yes we are," Janeway agreed. "As my first officer said, miss Merrshika wouldn't be a threat for you anymore, so far away from you."

"You shee," he said then, "I'm not verry interreshted in letting go away with Shtarrfleet officherrs a woman who knows the deepesht shecrretsh of my shpechies. Not to mention all the shpechies that you will encounterr durring yourr jourrney."

"Captain Sherrrim," Merrrshika intervened then. "I'm as much Mirrresh as you arre. I don't want to be a thrreat to my shpechies, but I don't want to die. I know you arre not a crruel perrshon. Please, let me go with them."

The captain Sherrrim sighed, rolled his eyes, and then said:

"Well, that'sh ok. If the _Voyagerr_ captain accheptsh you on herr boarrd."

"I do," Janeway said with a smile.

"But you need to turrn off all of yourr hack," Sherrrim told severely to Merrrshika.

"Well… Give me a minute, I made shome long algorrithms," Merrrshika stammered. "It will be done in half an hourr."

"That is agreeable," Sherrrim conceded. "Shorry forr the rrude hail, captain Janeway."

"No problem, captain Sherrim. I'm happy that we solved this problem with no serious damage."

"Good jourrney home, captain Janeway," Sherrrim said, cutting the communication.

There was a collective sigh of relief on the bridge. Kim shook his head, and started to work his console again.

"Captain Janeway?", Merrrshika asked very timidly.

"What's wrong?", Janeway asked, feeling wariness creeping back in.

"Don't you rrecognize what I'm in?"

Janeway walked briskly to the screen, followed by Tuvok.

"She is on board a borg vessel," Tuvok stated.

"Red alert!", Janeway exclaimed. Unfortunately, _Voyager_ was not fully back under control by Starfleet officers, and the alert refused to comply.

"Captain, we do not have any borg signatures around," Kim objected. "We are getting back our sensor reading, even the long range ones, and there is no borg vessel."

"I'm cloaked; I hacked yourr shenshorrs with gerrsh'kal code to hide thish ship."

"Why? If you are asking our help, you should stop to hack through our system," Janeway threatened. "It's not a good way to encourage us to trust you."

"Captain, think about it forr a minute!", the annoyed Merrrshika answered. "What would you do if a borrg vesshel jusht popped up in visual rrange, with 9 342 shtable life shigns in it, with shields at maximum? You would have firred at me beforre I everr had a chanche to explain myshelf."

"What are you telling me?", Janeway retorted, still threatening. "You are on board a borg vessel with 9 000 drones _alive_ in it?"

"Yesh, but they'rre ashleep," Merrrshika specified nervously. "I hacked shome borrg algorrithm sho they arre shtuck in rregenerration cycle forr eterrnity, if I don't rre-hack it to get them off rregenerration. Captain Sherrrim had damaged my shuttle…"

She had a strange reaction at that moment. She lowered her eyes, her triangular ears dropping away from her head, and her cheeks pulled back, as though she was about to cry, but she did not cry.

"My ship was dying, and I had to find anotherr vesshel to rreplache it. The only one I could fight in the whole arrea was a borrg vesshel. Sho I hailed them, went rright thrrough theirr communication shecurrity with shome hyshtarriol algorrithm, tapped into theirr rregenerration calculatorr with human code, shtopped the auto-shtop command with a Mirrresh lock and crrashed theirr hive of mind with a couple of kalishp codes. And the vesshel was rrelatively underr my contrrol. I can barrely move it shince I'm not used to electrronic commands. I cannot use the weapons shinche it needs a hive of mind confirrmation. I needed the shields at maximum to keep yourr shenshorrs buzy. And afterr, I needed the shields to keep hacking yourr shenshorrs and those of Sherrrim's ship."

"So, you were the borg ship on a parallel course, at the edge of range of our sensors," Janeway said.

"Yesh, it was me. Once I figurred out how yourr mix of human and borrg code worrked, I hacked it to fool yourr shenshorrs to detect a rremoval movement. Afterr that, I came closerr. I wanted to shcan thrrough yourr data beforre taking the rrishk to contact you. Sho I did. I learrned wherre you arre going and that you tolerrate varrioush shpechies. I jusht wanted to check if you had bad experrienches with people of my shpechies beforre I hailed you. Beforre I could do sho you had rran into Sherrrim, and I had to do shome furrtherr hack. Shall I rremove my lock overr yourr shield shecurrity acchessh?", she asked with a mocking smile. "You did ashk me to shtop hacking you."

"No, you can keep it there," Janeway said with a smile. "But uncloak your ship."

"Ok," Merrrshika sighed. "Don't firre at me."

She cut the transmission. Kim shook his head again, and murmured:

"I wanna know that girl."

He caused a certain vulcan eyebrow to raise.

After a few minutes, B'Elanna was communicating with the bridge to ask if Harry had been playing with teleportation consoles recently, and at what moment he would care to stop to create and solve breakdowns. Then, Seven warned them that astrometrics readings were fluctuating again, and that she was detecting the presence of _two_ important masses next to them, about the size of asteroids or warships, even if the sensors did not show anything. Then the red alert stopped, lights went back on, the engine that was stopped restarted itself and, finally, sensors came back in line.

Kim was too much aware to be on a spaceship's deck to swear under his breath, but the thought did cross his mind. Then he exclaimed:

"She's on a class 6 sphere warship! In visual range."

"On screen," Janeway said. "Red alert."

The borg war vessel appeared. It seemed damaged; there were fissures and hitting spots all over its hull.

"They must have been through a fight recently," Seven observed from the lab. "9 342 drones are not enough for a ship of that class."

"Life signs, Harry?", Janeway asked, not taking her eyes off the vessel, still rubbing thumb and forefinger together.

"9 342 drones and one unknown alien."

"Captain Sherrrim is hailing us," Tuvok announced.

"On screen," Janeway ordered.

"Captain Janeway! Jump to warrp, fasht! Don't shtay herre to defend a territorry that is not yourrs!"

"The borg ship's offline, captain Sherrrim. Merrrshika hacked it. She disconnected the borg from the hive of mind and she stuck them into regeneration."

Sherrrim's regard hardened.

"And onche you beam herr on yourr boarrd, what will happen to that borg vesshel?"

"Well," Janeway said, frenetically trying to find a solution that the other would accept, "Merrshika said the drones were stuck into regeneration cycles for eternity unless she removed her lock. So I guess it will stay asleep right where it is."

"And what if anotherr crrazy hackerr as herr is trrying to hack thrrough herr code? We will have a borrg vesshel rright next to ourr territorry! I don't want it to wake up, captain Janeway."

"She also said she had crashed their hive of mind. Even awaken, the ship won't be borg anymore. Once awaken, they will probably search for other borg to try to reconnect their hive of mind."

"I hate the worrd «prrobably» in that shentenche, captain Janeway."

There was a silence. Then Janeway asked:

"You have something better to propose?"

"Can't Merrrshika hack to theirr shelf-deshtrruct command?

"I will not be responsible for the death of 9 000 defenseless persons," Janeway stated with all her conviction.

Sherrrim rolled his eyes again.

"I will be rretrrogrrated, and they will shend anotherr warrship herre with hundrreds of hackerrs to brreak to theirr shelf-deshtrruct."

"Captain," Chakotay intervened. "Couldn't we do something with Unimatrix Zero? If there are borg in there with the mutation, they could take over the control of the ship…"

"Unimatrrixh Zerro?", captain Sherrrim asked.

"A mutation among the drones," Janeway explained. "It's a kind of sanctuary they reach when they are regenerating. There, they remember who they are. They started a mutiny against the borg. They even helped us while using a borg vessel, once."

"If therre arre drrones with that mutation on the shpherre, I want to know it," Sherrrim ordered. "If we could wake them, and let them take carre of the otherr drrones, that could be a sholution."

"We're working on it, captain Merrrshim," Janeway said with a smile as she cut the transmission. "Call Seven and tell her to meet in the ready room."

ooooo

Seven of Nine found a very borg way to detect the drones with a link to Unimatrix zero. She isolated the linking frequency, and detected it in five drones aboard the sphere. Merrrshika, once Seven teleported onboard, accepted to wake up five drones. She refused to do it as long as she was alone aboard the borg vessel. Seven had Tuvok and Kim teleport with her on the borg sphere. They were there when the five drones woke. There was a woman among them that had had a crush on Kurok in Unimatrix Zero. Anika and her fell into each other's arms when they recognized each other.

They woke around two hundred drones, two or three at a time, and made sure each time that their hive of mind was separated. They put back into regeneration the more resistant ones. After two days spent working on the borg vessel, there was a sufficient crew awake to have the vessel work. The woman who had taken control of the borg vessel gave her formal promise to Sherrrim to leave the system where she was to go into another solar system to wake the rest of her crew.

And _Voyager_ started back towards the alpha quadrant.


	3. Settling in

_Ah, I'm so happy to have had my first reviews on this story :) Thank you very much for your attention. This present chapter is just a short in-between; I just recently added it, as I felt the dialog-filled other chapters lacked space for depth of character, and something deserved to be said of how Merrrshika adapted to her change of life…_

Chapter III. Settling in…

The first day of Merrrshika on board _Voyager _was a busy one. She first was given a tour of the most important areas of the ship by the captain herself, was introduced to most of the crew, was more thoroughly acquainted with the bridge officers, was scanned over by the doctor who checked her for potentially problematic commensal bacteria, environmental and food compatibility, was debriefed by Tuvok about the main directives and procedures and given a ton of PADDs to study over about protocols and such. She was assigned quarters – those recently given up by B'Elanna as she moved in with Tom.

It was not until fourteen hours after coming on board that she was left alone for a moment. The humans and even the Vulcan had had trouble believing they could keep her working for so long, even if she told them that a day for her was forty-three Starfleet hours, and that a normal shift for her was precisely fourteen hours. Of course, she omitted that she had been up for almost four days straight, never getting more than two hours of sleep straight before another of her hacks just blew off and she had to repair it lest she found herself assimilated by a waking drone. But it was her first day on board, and she was not about to complain that she was tired. Tomorrow, maybe, she would ask a little moment off, so she could rest, adjust to the change, and study more PADDs. Surely this would be alright.

She sat on the bed of her new quarters when the door closed on Tuvok who had walked her to her door. He had explained to her that security codes would be delivered for her personal use of replicator rations and computer access, and that she would soon be enlisted in the personnel roaster, so the computer would respond to requests for directions from her.

She looked around in the minimal light, the pupil of her feline eyes dilating by an order of magnitude in the dark – there was something blinding to her in the light of Voyager. The quarters were passably aseptic and impersonal, being recently vacated, but the captain had assured her she could do the arrangement of her living quarters as she pleased. Still, there was the smell of a female occupant lingering; Merrrshika strained her sense of smell, and determined the occupant was not human – she was used by now to the smell of the main species on board – but could not clearly place who. She shrugged; it did not really matter.

She looked down at the bag besides her on the bed; her only belongings. She had three sets of clothes counting the one she had on; her very precious organic-inorganic interface; a recipient for water that would be useless on a ship equipped with replicators – what amazing technology, that one –; a bunch of hairpins; the Mirrresh equivalent of a toothbrush; a dog-eared, small black book where she had compiled most used commands in well over a hundred foreign programming languages of nearly as many species; a beautifully sea-carved stone from the summer house of her mother; and a piece of plating from her shuttle.

She sniffed, then started to outright cry as she took out the small piece of chitin-like material out of her pack. Her shuttle had been a good vessel; she had been courageous and generous. Not the kind to jump happily into a fray, but determined to do so if she sensed that it was the only way her pilot saw through. She had been capable of auto-piloting without much sleep for weeks on end while moving through worp as Merrrshika fled her home world in search of a way to escape what she had brought down upon herself.

How she was supposed to keep off it because she was supposed to suspect that she could find information on biological weapons in this database, she could not fathom – it was not like Merrrish was known to delve on those things, and more than one government had been overthrown for only daring to mention the possibility of research on that field. To know that very precise, down to the most minute details, plans of such weapons were stored into a database in the head of the military security of their beloved government would be enough to put the whole planet through quite a chaos. Merrrshika was not a politician; she was not a military; she was not a spy looking for intelligence; she was just a hacker with a dumb sense for foolish challenges. She had been trying to go through the thirteen levels of locks on remote access combining voice-print, password, terminal authentication and so on for years, and had spent most of the last months concentrating her efforts on that. The new back-up subroutine manually-activated in case of software breakdown she had designed for voice-print recognition had paid well, enough so that she could just be lazy, and try her ultimate challenge for a few months.

She was not unhappy to have achieved that, she was honest enough to admit it to herself; she was very proud of it, in fact, and she had learned quite a few very, very useful tricks in doing so – otherwise she would never have been able to crash the hive of mind of the borg sphere before her shuttle finally gave up and died. She did not regret too much going away from her home world forever, as she was in space for adventure, as much as she was in hacking for challenge and adventure, but as she sat listening to the hum of mechanical devices carrying through the clock-work of the _Voyager_, looking around at the aseptic quarters she was in, and laid a hand on the metal-cold small table by the bed, she realized she would deeply miss being onboard an organic vessel. And she would never be again.

And yet, mere days ago, she had watched the alarms of her shuttle flickering as she was giving away the last of her plasma and strength to get her within beaming range of the borg ship thinking she would never want to pilot an organic vessel again, because not a single shuttle could reach the ankle of the current one. Yet it had not occurred to her at the moment that something less would still be better off than nothing – it was probably better that way, it would have been a very unkind thought to the dying shuttle. Better she died with pride to be the only one worthy in her pilot's eyes.

Said pilot was now crying her last tears over her loss, painful tears for giving away this world forever, and letting out the tension of the weeks of fleeing and hiding and hacking here and there, trying to find a solution while eluding Sherrrim's very competent hackers and tactical officers. In the end, she just fell asleep like that, exhausted, in her clothes, on top of the covers of her bed, her hand still clutching the smooth piece of plating that had crowned the pilot's helmet.


	4. Hacking skills

_Thank you very much Firebirdgirl (I'll try to find the way to edit chapter contents to change worp to warp) and Aditu for reviewing. Hey Firebirdgirl, you are breaking my very carefully designed suspense about the fact that she's going to be good friends with Harry; try to make an effort not to spoil my efforts so publicly lol ;-)_

_Well, it's been a time since I posted on this story because I've been busy with another (as it tends to happen…), but here is the next chapter… more action is called for!_

Chapter IV. Hacking skills…

"Enshign Kim?", Merrrshika asked when she came near him in the mess hall.

"Yes?", he asked, turning around.

That's when he saw it was her. He should have recognized her accent, he thought. His expression changed, and he said:

"Oh, Mershika. You finally decided to take your meals with everybody else here?"

"Not rreally," she answered. "Chakotay told me you werre the perrshon I should ashk forr forr a new item design and the computerr told me you werre herre, sho I came to shee you."

"A new item design?", he asked.

"I would need shomething nearr what you call shunglasshes."

He burst into laughter, before he noticed that the vertical slit of her eyes was practically closed, and that she was constantly squinting. Moreover, she was holding her back to the closest light.

"Ourr planet is farr away frrom the shun, and therre is a huge planet jusht beforre ush. The light that comes therre is faint, and not it the shame shpectrrum as yourr light. The doctorr shays I need shunglasshes beforre I become blind."

Harry got down from his stool, and said:

"I'm sorry. Come with me in engineering, we will see what we can do to help you."

She smiled, and it pulled a little more her eyes into an almond shape. Harry forced his stare away from her to the door as naturally as he could. No doubt Paris would be laughing at him about that particular stare later on. Harry half-smiled to himself, and let the Mirrresh go into the turbolift first.

When they got to engineering, B'Elanna greeted them. More precisely, she nodded to Kim, and did not care to look in Merrrshika's direction. It saddened her a little; she had not expected the engineer to be angry that she managed to hack through _Voyager_'s security codes, but she would soon be intimately acquainted with the half-Klingon's grumpiness. Merrrshika did not dwell on it, however, because she had to follow Kim to a console where he immediately began to load the ship's database about the planets they had charted.

"Can you tell me a little about the system your planet is in?", Kim asked. "If I can find it in the database I will be able to reproduce the light specter there. So I will be able to program a material that will filter our light."

"We arre in the shyshtem of a classh thrree shtarr, in a forrming nebula," she answered, searching her memory; she was not an astronomer. "It emitsh an incrredible amount of gamma rrays, maybe that can help you to identify it."

She hesitated, frowned, and added:

"Therre… Therre is anotherr sholarr shyshtem nearr ourrs, about to collapshe if I rremember well."

Kim captured the data into the computer, and the machine announced that the database would be ready in thirty minutes.

"We can wait here or come back when it is done, if you prefer," Kim offered.

"Shomewherre elshe. Too brright in herre," Merrrshika said, starting for the door.

She went out of engineering only to find herself in the hallway, almost as brightly lighted. She closed her eyes for a second. This aggressive light was giving her a throbbing headache, and the back of her eyes hurt. When she opened her eyes again, ensign Kim was standing in front of her, looking concerned.

"May I help you?", he asked.

"No thanksh," she answered with a weak smile. "I will be in my rroom. I will come back in half an hourr."

"Ok," Kim agreed. "Well, see you later."

"Laterr," she said as she went away.

She walked with her eyes half shut until she reached the room that had been assigned to her. She closed all the lights, then also the curtain over the window that showed the space. She sat, eyes open in the almost complete dark. She could feel the tired, tiny muscles of her irises as they relaxed, the pain dulling, the headache going away. She gently massaged her temples, repressing an instinctive purr. Finally, she leaned sideways on her chair and dozed off, purring.

She was woken by the door ringing. She had said the "come in" before she was truly awake and aware that it was very dark in her apartments. The door swooshed open on a huge rectangle of violent brightness. She covered her eyes with one hand, repressing a small cry.

"Mershika?", Kim's voice called with hesitation.

At that moment, she was yawning, both hands over her eyes. It took her a while to answer.

"Computer, minimum light," Kim asked.

"It was impossible to execute this command," the feminine voice of the computer declared.

"Why?", Harry asked, more intrigued than angry.

"Because Merrrshika turned the light off," the computer answered as though it was sheer evidence.

"Computerr, minimum light," Merrrshika ordered.

A feeble radiance illuminated the place, but it was sufficient to make her grimace.

"What did you do to the computer, _again_, Mershika?", Kim asked, coming forward into her apartment, careful where he walked.

He hit a low table, and held back a swear. He thought he would have a blue on his shin, just where it was the most painful, but he would survive. He caught what was about to fall because of his collision, then called:

"Mershika? Are you alright?"

"Yesh, yesh," she answered with a tired voice. "I fell ashleep in the darrk. I wanted shomething to trry a new borrg lock on. I thought the light effect in my aparrtment wasn't a too imporrtant prrogrram."

Kim grinned a little at her.

"I will have to do a report to the captain," he said, falsely threatening. "Where are you? I don't see very well in the dark."

"Herre," she said.

She stood and touched his arm lightly. He startled, because he had no idea that she had been sitting in the chair instead of in her bed. And she moved silently, as a cat would.

It was a little amusing to see him strain his eyes in the dark, and obviously not see where he was going. He had his hands extended in front of him, but not extended enough to really warn him in time if he was about to collide against something, but not relaxed as though he trusted his sixth sense to guide him in the dark.

"So, are you ready to go back to engineering?", he asked.

"Yesh, we can go," she said with a smile.

He let her get out first, as always, gentlemanly enough. She couldn't help but squint her eyes and grimace when she stood out of her room to the brightly lit corridor. Harry did not make any comment.

When they reached engineering, the database was truly finished. Kim gave a few good words to the computer. Merrshika smiled; he acted as though the ship understood him, even if it was inorganic. It was sad that none of them had ever experienced the communication with an organic vessel. It was warm and comfortable, and not cold and impersonal as this place. It was darker, and it was home. She sighed as she remembered her own shuttle, Merrraka, wounded to death by a photon torpedo of Sherrrim's ship. The shuttle had sacrificed her last strength to carry Merrrshika far enough away for her to be safe. Then she had died. The borg sphere had felt deeply cold and unsettling after that, and _Voyager_ was not very comforting so far. The people were nice, but the place was cold, squarish and bright.

Soon planets began to stream across the screen, and she had to forget about Merrraka and concentrate on recognizing any of them.

"Therre!", she exclaimed after a moment.

Harry made the planets stream in reverse order.

"Thish one!", Merrrshika exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Look at the colorr! And rread the rradiation levels; thish is my planet."

She smiled fondly at her planet's image on the screen. Kim, looking at her, saw that she was already homesick. He was himself homesick, not able to wait until he saw Earth again, and more precisely a certain view of San Fransisco from some apartment… He was further from his home than her, but at least he had a hope of seeing it again.

"Computer, create a database about this planet. Create an image of the electromagnetic spectrum by wavelength and abundance," Harry ordered.

"The database will be...", the computer stopped.

Then there was the sound of the computer turning online. Merrrshika knew that symptom.

"What now!", B'Elanna exclaimed.

The time she needed to turn around and grab her tricorder on the table behind her, the strange display had disappeared from her screen.

"Oh? Ok,", she told her console, "you wanna play with me?"

Merrrshika noticed that B'Elanna's talk to the computer was considerably less nice than Harry's. She made three steps, and stopped in front of B'Elanna's console.

"Is therre an emerrgenchy shtop command on thish conshol?", she asked in an authoritarian tone that annoyed B'Elanna.

"Yes," she answered reluctantly.

"What is it?", Merrrshika asked, looking B'Elanna intensely and straight in the eyes.

"The good old control-alternate-delete."

"Do it!", Merrrshika exclaimed. "I believe shomebody's trrying to hack you. I need to shee his code to shtop him."

B'Elanna rolled her eyes, then sighed, then slowly pushed together the three buttons. All programs stopped; the engines had a few misfires, then stopped; the surrounding consoles stopped to answer, and a teleportation was cancelled because of the interruption of the strings of calculation.

The screen was black for a few seconds. B'Elanna started to bring her hand to her console to restart it, but Merrrshika said:

"Wait! The shecurrity delay with firra code is twelve sheconds."

"Security delay?", Harry asked.

"If therre is an emerrgenchy shtop, the firra prrotocol automatically shetsh a twelve sheconds delay in all shending codes. It is enough forr mosht computerrs; onche shtopped, people reshtarrt it afterr thrree or sheven sheconds, depending on species, in generral."

In the middle of her sentence, lines of symbols started to stream through the black screen of the chief engineer's console.

"Firra code," Merrrshika diagnosed with a crooked smile. "Not amateurr worrk, though," she observed, bothered.

She pushed a few buttons, but she was slow, the keyboard and interface not of a familiar design.

"It sheems like a teleporrtation hacking," Merrrshika hesitated. "That hackerr is trrying to go thrrough yourr shyshtem to download yourr teleporrtation shequenches. Thish way, if his ship has a poorr technology, he can get his teleporrtation rrange a lot higherr."

Harry and B'Elanna looked at each other.

"Do you want me to shtop it?", Merrrshika asked with half a smile. "If the hackerr does use yourr teleporrtation shequenches, it won't affect yourr teleporrtation rrange… Exchept that you might be accused of teleporrting a gamma bomb on the home worrld of a shpechies you neverr even hearrd the name of."

"Stop it!", B'Elanna exclaimed.

Merrrshika resumed her typing, erasing more often than she actually typed.

"May we help you?", Harry asked.

"Yesh! Can you lowerr the luminosity of thish conshol? I will have to work at leasht an hourr and a half to hack thrrough his shecurrity. If you could lowerr the luminosity of thish whole rroom, it would be perrfect."

B'Elanna lowered the hall's and the console's brightness. Once done, Merrrshika asked that her keyboard-interface be brought to her; she had designed it herself to fit her needs. It was in her apartments and Harry went to fetch it. B'Elanna stood behind Merrrshika's chair, looking over her shoulder. The hacker was used to people looking at her as she worked. It was not un-focusing her too much. Finally, Harry came back with her keyboard-interface and busied himself to connect it with B'Elanna.

It had been approximately seventeen minutes since she started to laboriously sabotage the teleporting sequences before they were sent to the unknown ship. Once she had her own console on her knees, she sabotaged the relay itself, so it would automatically corrupt any outgoing information. This would keep the other busy for a while; she had at least a chance to get through his security. Merrrshika inserted an absolutely incoherent line of code in the middle of the coding of the communication relay. It was made of unconnected parts of fira code used by the hacker to hijack the relay; he would probably believe that he had caused the malfunction and he would take some time to hijack another relay.

Just as she was finishing this, Janeway burst into engineering. The first thing she said was directed to Merrrshika:

"Can you explain to me, or do you need to concentrate?"

"I would prreferr to conchentrrate. Enshign Kim and lieutenant Torresh can explain you mosht of it. Shorry captain, but thish hackerr is almosht as good as me."

Harry and B'Elanna explained what was happening to Kathryn. After a few minutes of silence, the computer made the noise of getting online again. Merrrshika, rolling her eyes, swore in mirrresh.

"He's fasht!", she noted.

"What just happened?", Janeway asked.

"I shabotaged the rrelay he was using; he jusht hacked a new one. I can't shcrrap thish one too, he will underrshtand what I'm doing. I will have to manually change the teleporrtation shequenches beforre they rreach the communication rrelay. But as long as I keep doing that, I can't hack _him_. Is therre anybody with a sholid forrmation in prrogrrammation?", she asked in despair.

"I'm used to holographic programming," Harry informed her. "Could it be enough?"

"It will have to do", Merrrshika said as she went on with her typing. "Could you use the otherr console while I'm using thish one?"

Harry took a seat and smiled a little as he politely asked B'Elanna to heighten the brightness of the console.

"Ok, Harry, do you know how to exhit a coding page in manual contrrol?"

"Yes. I guess I do that?"

"Absholutely. Onche done, open a new one. Find the folderr forr a communication rrelay that contains morre algorrithms and prrotocols than the otherrs; trry to use a computerr diagnoshtic to find it. If it doesn't worrk, you will have to shcan thrrough them all manually. Shtarrt with the long rrange ones."

Harry busied himself for a moment, then he informed Merrrshika:

"The computer doesn't have enough resources to run a diagnostic. I'm starting the manual scan."

Janeway didn't understand much of what they were talking about. She also was seeing the never-ending lines of code align themselves on Merrrshika's alien console. Looking at the quick movement of the hands of the feline, Kathryn couldn't help but think of Tom. His hands moved the same way when he was piloting the ship, with the same speed, assurance, and efficacy.

"I found it!", Harry exclaimed after a good moment.

"Grreat! Open the awaiting trranshmisshions page; everry line, change a numberr. Don't change a numberr in the shame clushterr of each shequenche. If you do sho, they will be easierr to correct if I can't manage to errase his incoming trranshmisshion memorry."

Harry and Merrrshika busied themselves with their task, not talking or moving too much, except for the quick flight of their hands over their consoles. B'Elanna, Janeway and the other crewmembers in engineering sat, stood, or bore a hole through the deck with their repeated pacing.

"Damned, there is no end to those damned teleportation sequences", Harry said, approximately forty minutes later.

"There is a few millions of them!", B'Elanna exploded, inactivity making her slightly aggressive. "This crazy hacker doesn't want to download them all?"

"Of courrshe not," Merrrshika responded. "He rran a shearrching prrogrram firrsht; he's downloading jusht a couple of thousands of them, the long-rranged shequenches, and the close-prechision ones. It was on the firrsht firra page, the one that you shaw appearring afterr twelve sheconds."

Janeway didn't ask what would identify a searching program for teleporting sequences in the middle of a page of code in alien symbols. She didn't really want to know either what a teleportation sequence looked like. She was the captain, and there were engineers for that. She had been a science officer, but she had always preferred astronomy to engineering.

"Merrrshika," Kim started. "Captain."

"What?", the two women asked, almost together.

"What do I do if I can't keep up with the sequences? The download is fast and I miss some sequences."

"Neverrmind," Merrrshika reassured him. "Do the besht you can, I'm jusht about to bypassh his lasht lock."

They continued to write on their consoles. Harry was holding his lips together tightly, only visible sign of his tension. Merrrshika's shoulders were tensed. It was utter silence in the room, but for the sound of the typing.

"Yeah!", Merrrshika exclaimed abruptly.

She typed with renewed fury, then Harry lifted his hands from his console, saying:

"Transmission interrupted."

"I crashed his communication shyshtem," Merrrshika triumphed. "I jusht have to find the prrogrram to delete and overrwrrite the teleporrting shequenches... You can shtop to corrupt the data, Harry."

She still typed for a moment, then let out a loud growl that startled everyone in the room. She continued to express what must be utter triumph in her mother tongue, before theatrically pressing the button to the top right of her keyboard-console. Once the button was pressed, a page of symbols without head or toe started to stream up her screen. Merrrshika let herself sink in her uncomfortable engineering seat, hands on her eyes, legs crossed in front of her.

"Deleted the rrechieved teleporrtation shequenches and overrwrriting it with a piloting virrush, to avoid any rrecuperration yet posshible. Rrepeating the virrus indefinitely until it overrwrritesh all the shequenches rrechieved."

Harry pushed a long sigh, rubbed his face with one hand and leaned into his console. B'Elanna smiled and gave him a congratulatory slap on the shoulder. Merrrshika smiled, and Janeway looked at her smiling. It was the first moment when she truly realized the Mirrresh woman's talent and skill. She also had just probably got them out of a lot of trouble.

"Good job, Harry. You too, Merrrshika. Thank you."

"Well, the pleasurre was all mine," the Mirrresh said with a smile. "I learrned to hack a levian lock combined with a firra and a gerrsh'kal lock, today. But I should have thought about shending him a communication virrush within the shequenches… Maybe it would have been enough and it wouldn't have taken almosht two hourrs."

"Come on!", Harry exclaimed. "Nobody cares if you would have saved an hour! You did a great job, and completely fooled the other hacker, that's enough for us all!"

She smiled, stretched her fingers, and said:

"Now, I would need yourr help, B'Elanna. We need to rrepairr the two communication rrelays and to close all manual contrrol interrfaches to give back rreshourrches to the main computerr."

"Ok. Which relays did the hacker used?"

"Comm/send/rel/far/esc/5456 was the one I firrsht shabotaged," Merrrshika told her.

"Mine was comm/send/rel/far/esc/5890," Harry said.

B'Elanna and Merrrshika, each on their console, got rid of parasite lines of code, then re-established basic parameters for these relays. Finally, they closed the coding pages and the manual control. After a moment, the computer turned online and resumed:

"…ready in fifteen minutes."

Merrrshika burst into laughter.

"Harry, would you mind if we come back to shee the database tomorrow? My eyes arre feeling tirred."

"No, I don't mind!", he exclaimed. "Captain, would you mind if I took the first part of my shift off? I… would appreciate an hour to eat something."

"You mean, you were off duty?", Janeway asked. "Of course you can have a break! What were you doing in engineering?"

Before Harry started his report, Merrrshika excused herself and took the way to her room, eyes squinting more than ever. She couldn't help it; the simple fact of closing the door, the curtain and the light made her purr of sheer relief. She closed her eyes, lay down on her bed and fell asleep in the dark.


	5. and sunglasses

_Thank you very much for the reviews. This really is getting me going as my interest in this story would fade otherwise… it's rather old and just doing the re-read and tweaking isn't that interesting, but eh, you're there aren't you:)_

_This chapter was mainly my personal frustration venting as a biologist to see all the impossible species' compatibilities in Sci-Fi stories. Although the incompatibilities I mention here are only a minor, minor case (Merrrshika is a feline-based species, which supposes a mammal ancestry, which is a lot closer to life on Earth than you can expect from a random life-bearing planet somewhere out there…), it served to alleviate some of my frustration nevertheless._

_And so… hacking skills…_

Chapter V. …and sunglasses

The next morning, very early, her door rang. She stretched, yawning, her rough tongue curling between her sharp, long teeth, and she wrapped herself in a sheet to go to open the door – she was not awake enough yet to remember that _Voyager_'s door answered to voice commands, unlike the organic shuttles'.

The shock of the brutal light almost knocked her over. She put a hand in front of her eyes, and asked:

"Please, come in sho I can look at you. Who arre you?"

Harry repressed an urge to clear his throat or say anything. He could see the thin straps of the top she was wearing, over the edge of the sheet, and the few, blue hairs on her skin, here and there. Apparently, she had not thought it convenient for her to answer the door wearing only a top. It was worse that she had the sheet over it. It gave him the idea that it was there to be removed.

"Ensign Kim, sensor and holographic devices engineer," he said, coming in, trying to concentrate.

She closed the door behind him. She looked at him, and he wondered at what moment she would ask the minimum light, so he could see her. He stared blandly ahead of him in the blackness. She decided to ask him what he was doing there first.

"I thought we could go back to see the database to begin my shift," he answered. "Sorry I didn't think you would be sleeping after thirteen hours."

"Computerr, minimum light," she asked. "Well, on my planet the days have fourrty-thrree of yourr hourrs. Sho we shleep frrom fourrteen to shixhteen hourrs a day, in averrage. And we can shtay up forr thirrty hourrs without feeling shleepy. I have a little trrouble to adapt to yourr life rrythm."

"I can imagine. Do you prefer if I come back after my shift?", Harry asked with a thoughtfulness that made her smile. Of course she didn't knew he asked out of embarrassment.

"No thanksh. Onche I'm awake, I betterr do it now."

She smiled, and told him that she would join him in engineering in the next half-hour. Harry agreed, and left. As soon as the door closed, she let the sheet down, and stretched again, yawning. She even lay on her bed to stretch better. Then, she ran through her closet, but she had no more clean clothes. After two weeks, not having found anything looking like a washing machine, there were none of her clothes left. So she slipped into one of _Voyager_'s combination for non-Starfleet personnel on board. She didn't like the fact that the clothes were so tight, but she didn't really have a choice, did she. And moreover, there was nothing to wear over her tail; this was embarrassing. It was not an offense, but it was inappropriate in a working environment. She sighed, mused that no one would notice, except maybe the Vulcan, with his Vulcan interest in alien customs that might have informed him of this particular Mirrresh's custom, but… she would just have to ask someone where the washing machine was. She would prefer someone discreet, and she sighed.

She brushed her teeth before she went out and strode out to engineering, making a little curve towards the mess hall. Neelix greeted her with his usual warmth, and asked how she was. She stopped, thinking that maybe Neelix was the perfect person to ask her embarrassing question to. She pulled him a little aside and asked him, a little ashamed, but she explained that nothing looked like what she was used to on organic vessels. Neelix cleared his throat, and told her what was this strange sort of drawer under her replicator; she had thought it was the recycling, but did not have had to use it yet. She had used the bathroom's recycler. The morale officer also told her that, would she need information about her quarters' furniture, there was an extensive description in the computer's database. He could swear he saw her blush then; she had to be a hacker not to think to ask the computer. She thanked him, grabbed her cup of water and her bowl of compressed and baked cereals. She left rather in a hurry. Neelix smiled quietly to himself as she left.

It was doubly embarrassing. Why hadn't she thought to ask the computer? Of course those things were in the database! She sighed and nibbled at her cereals on her way to engineering; she wasn't aware of the ship's regulations about not eating outside of the mess hall or the living quarters. She was not done with her food when she reached engineering.

B'Elanna greeted her with a smile and a nod when she came in. Merrrshika told herself that she had been right to ask her help, the day before, to restart the relays. On the other hand, the chief engineer's attitude changed when she saw the Mirrresh carrying food.

"You can't eat in engineering."

"Oh, I'm shorry. Is it ok if I let it herre?"

She let down her glass and bowl on an empty space near the door. B'Elanna agreed grudgingly, but added:

"Don't eat it afterwards. You wouldn't want to get some ion poisoning or something. Anyway you're not supposed to eat out of your quarters or the mess hall."

Merrrshika assured her she would follow Starfleet regulations from now on. Her slightly ironic edge did not escape B'Elanna or Harry, who both smiled at her. She strode towards Kim, still sitting at the same console.

"Good morrning again," Merrrshika said, yawning.

It was easier to speak to her now, Harry thought, somewhat relieved. If only she could not sway her hips so when she walked…

"Good morning," he said, satisfied with his apparently casual tone. "You impressed the captain, yesterday, you know."

Merrrshika winked. "I musht shay I almosht imprresshed myshelf." Harry laughed and she added: "I was imprreshed by you, too. I didn't think it was posshible to hold on with the download shpeed for sho long."

"Well, thank you," Kim said, a little embarrassed.

Merrrshika leaned towards the console, changing the subject:

"Sho, what does the light shpectrrum shays about my planet?"

"You can see the light in a lower spectrum than us, I guess?"

"I shee in what you call ultrra-violet. Yourr visible light is infrra-violet forr me." She half-smiled then. She added: "I'm rreally happy that yourr light has lessh enerrgy than mine; otherrwise I guessh I would alrready have cancerr orr shomething like that. You, you would literrally burrn in a few hourrs, on my planet, I guessh."

"I'm glad it isn't the opposite."

"Me too. I wouldn't like to shpend the rresht of my life in a shpache shuit."

Harry nodded, and pushed a button, making a wavelength distribution appear on his console.

"You see, that is the spectrum of your light, and beside is the specter of the light on _Voyager_."

_Voyager_'s peak was towards longer wavelengths than the specter from Merrrshika's planet.

"I can program a material that will filter the longer wavelengths and keep the short ones," Harry stated. "I can keep the same ratio of short/long wavelengths as on your planet. The only problem is that there isn't much short radiation on _Voyager_. It will be very dark for you."

"But… It _is_ darrk on my planet. Couldn't you prrogram an emiterr in the shame materrial as the filterr?"

Harry made a pause, looking elsewhere, then his face came to life and he said, enthusiastic:

"An emitter! I could program some enhancer in the material… only it would still be dark, otherwise it would be a health hazard to us humans."

"An enhancer?", she asked, her forehead wrinkled.

"Yes, yes! We ran across some sort of metal that resonated with visible and emitted UV light a few weeks ago in an asteroid field… the energy level difference was fueled by a nuclear reaction within the asteroids. I just have to calculate the excited energy levels…"

Merrrshika laughed. It was a strange laugh; it didn't sound like a human laugh, but it was obvious it was her way of laughing, and it was not threatening as was her victory cry.

"I believe you!", she exclaimed. "Don't trry to explain, I don't want to know it! I'm impresshed, enshign Kim."

"You will have to come to check the enhancer once in a while, though," Harry warned. "This metal has a short half-life."

"No prroblem."

"And now the fun part," Kim said, rubbing his hands together. "What appearance do you want your sunglasses to have?"

She looked at Harry as though she didn't get his meaning. He explained:

"Do you want them to be round, square, triangular, dark, yellow, blue, invisible?"

"I don't know," Merrrshika hesitated. "Can't they be jusht "orrdinarry"?"

"Of course not!", B'Elanna explained, coming closer to take a look at Harry's console. "You will wear them all the time, and people will always see them on you. We will almost consider it as a part of your body, when we will look at you. It _must_ fit you."

"I don't know what shape orr colorr of shunglasshes can fit me."

"Harry," B'Elanna asked, taking matters into her own hands, "what would you think about a triangular shape? It would fit the shape of her face and eyes."

"I agree," Harry said, smiling to Merrrshika. "And what about blue glass? That would be in her color of… of fur."

"Good choice," B'Elanna approved. "What do you think about it, Merrrshika?"

Merrrshika noticed immediately that B'Elanna was the only one on board capable of sufficiently rolling the triple "r" of her name. It made her smile contentedly, and she approved the proposed appearance of her sunglasses.

Harry set to the task of programming the engineering replicator with the material desired characteristics, while B'Elanna began to calculate the dosage of each material that would produce the good short/long wavelength ratio.

"B'Elanna?", Merrrshika asked suddenly, a little shy to keep two senior officers busy for so long. "Arren't you on yourr duty shift?"

"Yes? Why?"

"Well, thish isn't rrelated to yourr worrk, and I don't want to…"

B'Elanna smiled, and put a hand on Merrrshika's shoulder to stop her.

"Don't worry. This is related to my work. After what you did yesterday, you are definitely a part of _Voyager_'screw. And it is a part of my duty to help _Voyager _crewmembers when my engineer talents can help."

"Thank you, B'Elanna."

"No thanks needed. If those sunglasses can help to prevent from unsettling the luminosity of all consoles of the engineering, that will be a good thing!"

Merrrshika laughed, and looked, totally useless, as Kim and B'Elanna went on with their various measures. She smiled, thanking life to have already put two friends on her way. Eventually, she left to meet with Tuvok, who still had a few regulations and such to brief her about.

ooooo

Harry finished before B'Elanna. He wanted to test the material's programmed characteristics before actually spending resources to replicate it. He met Merrrshika on his way to the holodeck II. They walked together, and the Mirrresh told him of her impatience to finally look people in the face without squinting her eyes to the point of migraine. Harry warned her that, although everything was running smoothly, it was possible that the conception of her sunglasses might take a few shifts. She shrugged, smiling:

"A few of your shifts mean a few of your days, which is short for me."

She winked, and they finally entered the holodeck. It was the first time Merrrshika saw this particular inorganic device. She observed the tiles on the floor and the folded pieces of material holding more tiles on the walls, wondering what their use could be. Kim walked forward, and gestured Merrrshika to follow him. She walked forward rather cautiously.

"Thish is a holodeck? What does it do?"

"You never saw a holodeck?", Kim asked, stunned.

Seeing her negative sign of the head, remembering that her species was not much into technology – with the notable exception of hacking techniques – he explained:

"This is projecting a holographic landscape. You actually feel like this is a real place, somewhere on a planet. Do you want an example before I try my sunglasses program?"

"Yesh, I would like to."

Kim identified himself to the computer, then asked for the exhaustive list of "evasion" programs in the computer's database. The computer then named a dozen of Earth's places. Kim stopped his choice with "Moon Rising on Kyaloping", and put the program on with his vocal identification. A landscape brutally materialized around them. Merrrshika startled, and looked everywhere around, looking slightly scared. Kim made a step towards her, a little bent to the front, and his hands together in an attitude she was starting to know.

"Don't be afraid. This is just an hologram."

Merrrshika lifted her head, and breathed in deeply.

"Yesh. I can shtill shmell the shynthetic odourr of the rroom."

She smiled to Kim, who laughed slightly. At this very moment, B'Elanna arrived in the holodeck II. She looked around, then observed:

"This is a really nice and romantic place to test sunglasses."

Harry recovered rather graciously from that. "Merrrshika never saw a holodeck before. I wanted to show her what it can do. I thought about this holoenvironment since it happens at night. I thought it would be easier for her eyes."

"It is. Thank you."

She smiled at him again, touched that he had this concern. B'Elanna was also smiling, but with a little jeering. She brought the discussion on a distinctly more professional ground:

"So. Did you try the so-called sunglasses?"

"Not yet," Kim answered. "Computer, open the program for modification."

He entered his authorization again. Then, he loaded all the data from the engineering replicator into the "Moon Rising" program. And he programmed the modification to be applied to the person standing on grid G10 of holodeck II. Sunglasses materialized on Merrrshika's surprised face. She lifted her hand to her face slowly, and touched the branches of the glasses.

"Even theirr touch is rreal," she said with admiration.

"How is your sight?", Harry wondered.

"A little darrk, but a lot morre comforrtable. Could you trry a morre brright shimulation?"

"Of course," Kim approved.

He entered his identification code another time, then loaded another program: "Sunny afternoon at Cancun". This time again, Merrrshika startled, but she turned everywhere around, marvelling at her new sight.

"Wow! Therre is shtill too much infrra-violet, but it'sh quite good!"

Harry augmented the filter intensity of 15.

"Perrrrrrrfect!", Merrrshika exclaimed, starting to purr.

B'Elanna and Harry burst out laughing.

"Sorrrrrrrrry," Merrrshika apologized, not stopping to purr, "I can't help it!"

They giggled a little more until Merrrshika finally repressed her overwhelming comfort at finally not being blinded anymore. Then, B'Elanna did a little more calculations about the different components' dosage, and Harry transferred the modifications to the replicator in engineering. The three of them got out of the holodeck and started back towards the turbolift that would take them to the higher decks. Merrrshika asked what were the uses of the holodecks, still repressing an urge to purr:

"Do you use it jusht forrrrrr fun? I mean, jusht to get off _Voyagerrrrr _forrrrrr a moment?"

"No," B'Elanna explained. "Of course, there are hololandscapes, holotreks and holonovels, but we use it also as a training place. We can program famous fights, new consol designs, etc."

"Fightsh? Isn't that dangerrrrrroush?"

"There is a security algorithm that prevents weapons from being harmful," Harry informed her.

"Oh," Merrrshika answered. "Do you think I could have accessh to the holodecksh?"

"Of course!", B'Elanna answered. "I will ask the captain to give you an access code if you wish. This way you will be able to load any program in the computer memory."

"OK. But I would like to be able to prrrogrram one myshelf, too. May I?"

Harry burst out laughing and noted:

"Even if we don't give you the access code you will do it anyway, right, Merrrshika?"


	6. Mysterious programs

_I do have fun to write this story (or more like re-writing it as I translate it from my French as I go) and find a way to bring some imperfect details of life as it is in the usually-perfect-world of Star Trek. I hope I'm not offending too many people with this slightly "parody" attitude (I'm referring to hacking Starfleet, hacking the borg, not finding the washing machine, putting bugs into holodecks and such)._

_I thank you, Firebirdgirl, Aditu (don't apologize… your reviews are always welcome no matter which day I receive them) and Anthro-Angel, for your reviews. :-)_

Chapter VI. Mysterious programs

As it turned out, Kathryn accepted willingly to give an access code to Merrrshika, under the condition that Merrrshika told her what she wished to program, which Merrrshika did after she had the captain's solemn promise that she would keep it secret. As soon as she had her access code, the hacker spent almost all her free time – well, when her schedule fitted Harry's – taking lessons of holographic programming. She was learning along very well, because her mind was used to the logic and twists of programming and codes of all kinds. She could easily catch up with a new type of algorithms.

She was a little anxious to request of Kim more time than he wished to give her, but he welcomed her each time with a smile and a affable smile. They always talked a little before the beginning of each lesson, learning to know each other. Merrrshika used it as a way to learn about him as much as about his culture and _Voyager_'s past adventures. Once, he told her how the vessel had fallen into the hands of hunting saurians that had tried to turn the whole ship into a gigantic holodeck. He told her how he had activated the Doctor in the middle of a corridor and had made him disappear just before the arrival of the two saurian guards. He had been accused of being late in his work and had asked to give his report to the bridge, to the guards' superior officer. As he was refused, he had said to the guards to warn their superior officer that he was now under their orders and that it was the reason why he would never get his report. The two guards had yielded, and he had made his report, without being accused or even suspected.

There, there was like a distant light at the edges of Merrrshika's mind. She needed… barely another brush of light…

"Could you rrepeat what you jusht shaid, Harry, please ?"

He did so, and the light brightened.

"Oh yeah!", she exclaimed with contentment. "You'rre prroud of how you got out of that shituation, arren't you?"

"Yes," Kim admitted. "But what's your point?"

"I felt it on yourr mind."

The light instantly faded to nothingness. She smiled with regret and reassuring thoughts in equal parts, and she pressed on:

"Don't worrry, Mirrresh arren't good telepathsh. In fact, we arrre "team telepathsh". It means that we can jusht… sense the generral shtate of mind of people we arrre a good team with. The link is alrready gone. It is only a little help with shuttles orr forr militarry actions."

"If you say so. What were you supposed to do today?", Kim asked, changing subject with little subtlety.

She answered, but promised herself not to brush the subject with him again. Another thing to ask Tuvok: was everyone onboard uneasy about telepaths? She was not even a real telepath; as she had said, she could just get a glimpse of the state of mind of close friends or team-mates. And she would not let him see if she ever got other "lights" from him.

ooooo

"Merrshika, may we join you for dinner?", Chakotay asked. He was accompanied by Tuvok.

"Well, actually thish is my brreakfasht, but neverrmind and shit down," she pointed with a smile.

With her triangular sunglasses, she always seemed to have a mischievous smile. She seemed happy and also always ready for a trick or joke. Her electric blue gloves and black outfit added to the impression.

"Mershika, what is this holoprogram you are working on with such determination?", Tuvok asked.

"Ah!", she exclaimed with a mysterious look. "You will know it jusht onche it is finished."

"Tuvok doesn't want to admit he's eager to know about it," Chakotay remarked with a wink.

The Vulcan, either oblivious to the wink or badly wishing to correct the offending assumption, corrected patiently:

"Eagerness is a feeling and I do not have feelings, Commander."

Merrrshika smiled even more slyly, and Chakotay grinned.

"Well, if Tuvok is not eager to know, I am."

"You will know what it is jusht onche it is finished. But I can tell you I worrk on two differrent prrogrrams."

"Two?", Tuvok inquired, too quickly to give the impression that he really was not interested.

"Yesh. Don't even trry to hack them, Tuvok, therre arre thrree differrent locksh on each of them. And among these locksh is a shterrika algorrithm."

She took a sip of her water, winking behind her blue-tinged sunglasses. Chakotay laughed and Tuvok lifted an eyebrow.

"Sorrry, I have to go worrk a little morre on those prrogrrams. Have a good day."

She left the mess hall, Chakotay and Tuvok alone at her table behind her. She took the now-well-known itinerary to holodeck two. No one was using it anymore, because she had literally seized it. And, before she was actually good at programming, she had tried quite a few new experiences. The results had been uneven, to say the least, and a few bugs that were impossible to drive out without a complete clean-up of the holodeck matrix, which would be a long task. And she preferred to be over with her experimentations before she set to it. One of the numerous minor dysfunctions and fixes was that, when a simulation worked bit by bit, stopping every two words, she had to ask for the opening of a color modification operation and close it right away. All those bugs made it so that no one else was using holodeck two. B'Elanna would have come to try and repair it, but she was busier elsewhere, with the annual regeneration of the warp engine. As all engineers were very busy with their annual inspection, the holodeck was left deserted and half-unworking.

And B'Elanna had sworn to drag Merrrshika into a merciless game of Klingon wrestling if she did not fix everything back to better-than-perfect order once she was done with the holodeck. The programs might be for the good of the ship – as mysterious as they were – but still, there were things the chief engineer would not tolerate regarding _her_ mechanical devices.

This day was a rather busy day, even by Mirrresh standards. First she spent eight hours programming non-stop. After that, she closed the program and engaged the security lock over it, and she went to lunch. She dragged herself, famished, to the mess hall that was empty at this hour, which so happened to be the middle of the night by human schedule.

She addressed silent apologies to Neelix to be trudging around his mess hall in the middle of the night and looking through his precious culinary creations.

And, again, she was reduced to ask a tartar steak to the replicator. She was thoroughly bored to be eating this all the time, but it was the only compatible food in the database, except for the baked cereals she kept for the morning, because they were lighter on the stomach than the steak.

After that, she went back to the holodeck and programmed another ten hours straight. And she put the final touches to her programs. Her biological clock told her loud and clear how late it was. She stood and yawned, stretching, rolling her cat's tongue between impressive canines. When she opened the holodeck's doors, she found herself face to face with Tuvok.

"Hi, Lieutenant-Commander," Merrrshika saluded him.

"Hi, miss Mershika."

"Sho, what werre you doing in the holodeck?", she inquired, barely able to stifle her laughter.

"I was... I was running a tactical simulation about Wolf 359," the Vulcan stammered, with a noticeable lack of his species' characteristic coolness.

"Oh yeah!", she mocked. "Thish is not good forr a shecurrity officherr to be caught shpying!"

"I was not."

He was about to argue, but she went around him grinning. She did not feel like going to bed, despite the late hour inscribed on her biological clock. When she entered the mess hall, it was full. Kim, Chakotay, Janeway, B'Elanna and Seven were not on duty, because they were chatting with Neelix, leaning on the kitchen's counter.

People were getting used to the feline step of her hips as she walked, and so she was not attracting so much incredulous stares now, but right now her smile was so bright and her step springing so energetically that Kim said, as a matter of greeting:

"I guess these programs are finished."

"Oh yesh, they arre," she announced with a huge smile.

She commanded a Klingon alcohol, very strong. B'Elanna made an appreciative smile. Merrrshika took a long sip, then added:

"I plan to drrink a little. I shwear I won't get drrunk beforre the captain. Then I'll have a good and long night of shleep, and trry my prrogrrams tomorrow. Oh, by the way, Captain, we'rre shtill going thrrough horshe's head conshtellation in about twenty-fourr hourrs?"

"Yes," Janeway confirmed.

She was the only one onboard who could guess why Merrrshika was asking those questions, but Chakotay asked:

"Why? Is there a danger there?"

"No, not if you tell them that you'rre jusht trravelling."

"Who? That system is not inhabited, according to our database," Seven observed.

"Oh, it isn't mosht of time," Merrrshika admitted. "But it is shix yearrs shince the lasht ionic burrsht in thish shyshtem. A perrfect timing. Good night, everryone."

She lifted her glass, got down of her stool and strode out of the mess hall with her feline walk that did not fail from hypnotizing a good third of the room's males.

When she reached her room, she stripped of her clothes, left them in a most untidy – and un-Starfleet-regulated – pile on the floor, rolled into bed, started purring from the sheer satisfaction of having written and saved the last lines of code, then fell asleep.


	7. Mysterious attacks

_Hello! It's me again! Hey, you know I got many reviews for this chapter. Thank you all, I'm glad you like this story :-)_

_Firebirdgirl: Thank you._

_Aditu: you know, Tuvok is just too fun to make fun of. He's just calling for kind teasing with his stoicism. And you will have answers to some of your questions here, and others later on. ;-)_

_Corky: Thank you._

_Anthro-Angel: was that soon enough for you (flutter my eyelashes) ?_

_Odairu… hm, well… glad you both like it…?_

_So… here we reach the Horse's head nebula… or almost._

Chapter VII. Mysterious attacks

She woke twenty hours later. She felt limp, relaxed, satisfied and incredibly rested. She languorously stretched in her bed for a long while before she stood and dressed, after a good sonic shower. She tied her "hair", merely fur longer than on the rest of her body, with many hairpins, giving herself a mischievous and ruffled air.

She went to holodeck two… to find it occupied by B'Elanna and three technicians.

"Oh no," she said. "Maintenanche day?"

"Yes," B'Elanna said, grinning.

Merrrshika burst out laughing.

"I thought you werre deterrmined to let me get rrid of the bugs. And I guessh that the otherr holodecksh arre occupied?"

B'Elanna nodded her head in mock agreement.

"I guessh Tuvok told you which one I was using. And I guessh Kim told you what a long night of shleep meant forr me. And maybe Chakotay gave you yourr shift off prropulshion rregenerration."

B'Elanna made a thin smile, then declared:

"Impressive. You never thought about becoming a security officer?"

"No, I didn't," Merrrshika answered with a very forced smile. B'Elanna did not appear to realize the question she had just asked a hacker. The Mirrresh tapped her Starfleet icon. "Merrrshika to the brridge."

"Go ahead," Janeway answered.

"I would like to have acchessh to the brridge, to have a look at shenshorr's rreadings."

"If you wish, but there is nothing particular at the moment."

"I'm on my way," Merrrshika eluded.

She wished a good day to B'Elanna, then took the corridor and turbolift that would take her to the bridge. When she entered, she joyously exclaimed "good morning", bringing a smile to Janeway's lips to see her exuberant disrespect of Starfleet-protocolled obligatory discretion on the bridge. Her enthusiasm also caused a silent reprobating shaking of a Vulcan head.

Once she had the captain's permission, she walked over to Harry's console, who gestured her forward, but made a show of staying close enough to peep over her shoulder. She began by asking the list of the running scans. As she had thought, those she wanted were among the routine operations. She displayed and zoomed the results of four on the console: polarization, xenon detection, ionization and hyper-low radio frequencies. After a while, Tuvok did not resist his curiosity – I mean, his duty as a security officer, and asked:

"What are you looking for, Merrshika?"

"Mirrresh shipsh," she answered.

"Ships? Warships? What are they doing here?", Tuvok exclaimed.

Janeway was grinning so much that the shrewd Vulcan was forced to admit defeat. The captain had withheld information from him, and she surely knew what Merrrshika was planning with the holodeck programs too. It could only make sense that Merrrshika was doing so much by herself on the ship since her arrival because the captain knew of her plans and had agreed to them. Tuvok recognized the flaw in his logic to have overlooked such obvious evidence before this moment. It was a serious overlook on the part of a security officer, he admonished himself. He had to be more careful and attentive in the future.

However, Merrrshika explained herself with good patience:

"Not warshipsh, motherr shipsh. Females. They come herre to give birrth to theirr child because of the ionisation and polarrisation coming frrom the shtars herre. They need it to initiate communication with the babies. Therre arre jusht a few males, generrally. All those shipsh arre alone, except the males who have a rregularr crrew onboard. The motherrs arre left alone and frree with theirr child forr two orr thrree weeks beforre they accept crrew onboarrd, when they have childrren."

Being the highest ranked officer that was not aware of her plans, Tuvok felt compelled to ask for the benefit of the other bridge officers:

"Very well, but why are you trying to find them?"

"I want to buy a ship."

"What?", Kim asked with surprise, and more than a little displeasure.

"I'm not planning on leaving the ship this way and breaking our agreement with captain Sherrrim," Merrrshika hastily specified.

"If it is not to leave, then why do you want to buy a ship?", Tuvok asked again, after Janeway made a theatrical gesture of the hand to encourage him to continue with his interrogatory.

Merrrshika let her hands fall from the console, and turned to look solemnly at Kathryn.

"Captain, it was sho generroush to take my onboarrd _Voyagerr_. I shee Sheven helping you everry day with herr mapsh and Neelixh as a morrale officherr. I want to help you too, Captain, I want to deserrve to be a memberr of yourr crrew." Then, she turned to Tuvok. "What I want to buy, in fact, is two shmall shuttles, one male and one female. They arre shmall warr shuttles, light and nimble. They could be used as a shecond type of attackerr, in battles wherre hackerrs arre giving you trrouble, orr when you have prroblems with yourr computerr. And onche in the alpha quadrrant, I'm surre therre's a U-classh shtarr giving the rright polarrisation forr theirr rreprroduction."

There was a moment of silence as everyone took in what she had just offered them.

"This is an ambitious plan, Merrshika," Tuvok remarked. "It is also very generous of you."

"It'sh the leasht I can do, Lieutenant-Commander," Merrrshik answered, "to rrepay everryone's generrosity with me shinche I'm herre. Beshides, I have fun to pilot light shuttles. Therre!", she exclaimed excitedly out of a sudden. "Therre is a herrd there."

Polarization and ionization were favourable, there was a pattern of many concentration zones of xenon and an incredible quantity of hyper-low frequencies.

"What arre they doing?", Merrrshika wondered aloud.

"What's wrong?", Janeway worried.

­"Either it'sh theirr firrsht communication and they'rre howling to the moon, or they arre underr panic. They'rre yelling all at the shame time."

"Yellow alert," Janeway commanded.

Merrrshika requested permission to listen to an audio conversion of the hyper-low frequencies, which she was given immediately. She checked if the conversion would give the levels of volume and wavelengths as she was used to ear them, changed a few parameters to adjust it correctly, then put on audio the Mirrresh vessels' communications. She needed no more than two seconds, and she closed the communication.

"What a strange sensation," Kim observed. "I could feel the vibration in my body, but I didn't hear anything."

"They'rre crrying," Merrrshika stated, not paying attention to Kim's remark.

Janeway asked, preoccupied: "Do you know why they are crying?"

"No… They werre complaining about lotsh of deathsh, and that they arre losht."

Janeway turned to the pilot. "Ensign Murphy, how long until we get to the coordinates pointed by Merrrshika?"

"Two hours thirteen minutes, Captain," he answered.

"Stay on yellow alert. Call me and the other senior officers in one hour, or if there is any change."

As she was talking, Janeway had started to walk around the bridge towards her ready room, leaving the bridge to Tuvok.

"Yes, Captain," the Vulcan answered, taking place into the commanding seat.

"Merrshika," Janeway called her. The Mirrresh quickly realized she had been supposed to follow the captain. She sighed; how was she supposed to react correctly to these strange Starfleet customs if no one told her about them? She followed the captain into the ready room, and the door closed automatically behind her, which did not fail to make her nervous even after all this time.

"Merrshika, do you have any idea what is their situation and what happened?"

The hacker sighed slightly, and explained in a weary tone: "Motherrshipsh want to be quiet to give birrth. They don't want a crrew to be on theirr boarrd forr the thrree weeksh needed to come herre, deliverr, initiate communication with the children and go back. All thish time, they arre eshcorrted by a few males. The deathsh they arre complaining about can be vesshels orr Mirrresh crrew. The fact that they arre losht… it makesh me feel like therre is no morre crrew… They don't know what to do, they'rre afrraid to do anything."

"The Mirresh people, on your home world, don't they have contacts with the motherships?"

"Not while they arre away. Because they arre sho vulnerrable, we keep shecrret the place wherre they give birrth. Ourr shipsh have a biochemical shield that gives them ashterroids shignaturres on yourr shensors. They'rre hidden."

"But if they were under attack," Janeway insisted, "wouldn't they send a distress call?"

"To tell everry prredatorr arround that therre is an easy prray rright therre?", Merrrshika countered. "Shpache has not been sho kind on Mirrresh that we got help each time we rrequeshted asshishtanche. Ourr shipsh arre harrd to contrrol; even if an attackerr kills the males and theirr crrew, they can't capturre all the shipsh. It alrready happened many times beforre, and each time we rrebuilt ourr fleet with the shipsh that werre left."

"So, the males let themselves die without asking for help?"

"Yesh," Merrrshika confirmed. "But they don't give up beforre a hell of a fight, I can asshurre you."

Janeway calculated for a while the advantages and flaws of such a tactic, and decided she preferred Starfleet ways and the relative respect of distress calls in the alpha quadrant. Then, she asked: "What do you think we will find once we get to the birthing sanctuary?"

"I don't know," Merrrshika admitted. "I jusht hope we won't find a pack of thief vesshels."


	8. Reaching the Vessels

_Guys? Where did you all disappear this week? Not a single review? Well, I do hope you still like this story, and am posting the next chapter now. No pack of thief vessels. You've got to wait for a few more chapters before I try myself at writing interstellar combat. :-)_

Chapter VIII. Reaching the vessels

They could not approach the herd of Mirrresh vessels very much, because the hyper-low frequencies were threatening _Voyager_'s structural integrity. From their safe distance, they sent out a message on all channels, but there was no answer. Merrrshika was listening warily to the audio translation of the ships' communication, and she could not do otherwise than notice the change when _Voyager_ sent out his call for survivors and offer for help.

In the primitive but nevertheless intelligent minds of the Mirrresh vessels, wariness and anger rose, and finally overwhelmed fear and distress. A mechanical vessel, not unlike the one that had attacked them, was near.

"They've been underr attack by mechanical vesshels," Merrrshika stated. She could hear them saying it to each other in angry whispers. "They'rre grrowing aggrresshive towarrds ush. Can you put them on shcrreen? I musht shee theirr moves to know when they arre about to attack."

Janeway ordered to put them on screen. There was more or less fifty motherships, flocked behind two huge armour-plated cruisers, undoubtedly males judging by their defensive positions, moving even more slowly than usually.

"They'rre sho shlow, and they'rre losing colorr," Merrrshika noted. "They musht be sherrioushly injurred."

Their near-violet, brilliant colour to Merrrshika's eyes – which was called "violent" in her tongue – was fading to a colour of longer wavelength, less aggressive to the eyes – which was designated by "eclipse" in Merrrshika's mother tongue.

Despite the loss of color that was stating in all clarity their serious condition, they moved bravely in a defensive position before the anxious females. One of the two lurched menacingly.

"He's telling ush to back off and rrun away," Merrrshika said.

"Can't you tell him we're here to help them?", Janeway asked, naively enough in Merrrshika's opinion.

"Can you tell a horrshe to shwallow vinegarr because it can heal him?", she retorted. "Teleporrt me on his boarrd, maybe I will be able to take him underr my contrrol. He sheems tirred and weak. He won't have much rresistanche left."

_I just hope it won't kill him_, she added in an afterthought.

"This is not very cautious," Kim objected, even if it was clearly the captain's place to formulate objections.

"Harry's right," the captain added.

"I know, Captain," Merrrshika sighed. "But they will attack ush shoonerr orr laterr. They'rre not in top shape, but they shtill have shields twiche shtrrongerr than ourrs. They will both die, we will take sherrioush damage and the females will crry even morre and you will have to back off anyway." She gave a pleading look to Janeway, even as she was thinking to herself that she had not even pleaded to Sherrrim; her long adversary would have been incensed to know that _anyone_ could make her _beg_ this easily. "Let me teleporrt, please, Captain."

Janeway considered in silence for a moment, then decided:

"Permission granted, Merrrshika, but I can't let you go there alone."

"Who will come with me? It'sh not exactly funny for the passhengerrs when the vesshel is doing tunnels, trrying to get the pilot off the shaddle. Sherrioush wounds happen, shometimes."

Then, Chakotay suggested:

"Could you take the doctor with you?"

"Verry good idea!", Merrrshika exclaimed with a smile. "He can't be wounded and he can help to heal the shipsh!" Then, she was suddenly aware of something else. "The ship will prrobably detect jusht two perrshons. But if he detectsh that therre is an hologram on his boarrd, he will prrobably become as mad as hell. They hate mechanical beings."

"That's a risk to take," Janeway declared.

She called the doctor and made him prepare his mobile emitter and his first aid kit. Merrrshika had him add enough of Mirrresh-DNA-compatible sedative to send a flotilla of ships on the shores of unconsciousness.

They gathered in the teleportation room. Merrrshika explained to the doctor what they would have to do, then recommended to the captain to have _Voyager_ ready to beam the doctor back on board if the Mirrresh vessel detected his presence. Merrrshika removed carefully and thoughtfully her sunglasses before she was beamed up.

She rematerialized in the back of the pilot-room with the Doctor. Immediately, the ship started to rear up and roll with panic, accompanying his moves with destabilization of the internal artificial gravity. Two unknown people had just arrived onboard, and not by an airlock or by the teleportation room, but dangerously close to the commands.

The Doctor was knocked over by the shift of gravity as soon as he rematerialized. Merrrshika was more used to this kind of manoeuvre, and lunged for the wall, gripping tightly one of the many handles there. She dragged herself forward, using as much her arms as her feet to walk against the steadily increasing inclination of the ship.

The Doctor was quick to imitate her and grip one of the handles, watching her progress forward. The control room was dark and bathed in violet light, no doubt the only visible part of the possibly stronger illumination by Mirrresh standards and eyes. The place was relatively small and crowded by the pilot seat. It was a saddle shaped between what appeared to be two vertebrae, and there was an organic-looking helmet overheard. Many more consoles crowded the enclosed space. Behind the pilot seat was another chair, smaller and with a hand-viewer, which would probably be the captain's. There were various other consoles around the room, but they were close together and of a strange design, organic-looking. Only one seemed mechanical, and the Doctor guessed it must be the ship's hacker's console.

The place truly was used to a maximum, the space calculated so that there was just enough place for a lithe feline Mirrresh to slide between the pilot seat and the chair of a sitting fellow officer at the station next to it. Everything was coloured with the strange un-blue that the Doctor guessed was ultra-violet, and the lines were irregularly angular or smooth curves, probably the constraints of a biological vessel showing in the design of the internal environment.

But no mechanical vessel had ever sloped the gravity so, and the Doctor failed to see, as of yet, what was the advantage of biological vessels; surely biology, even if aided by genetic or proteomic manipulations, could not be upgraded as quickly as all the engineering devices of a vessel like the _Voyager_.

Merrrshika had reached her destination, and hoisted herself in the pilot saddle with a supple torsion of her body. She lost no time in pushing forcefully her hands down into the cylindrical holes on each side of the saddle, about twenty centimetres deep, at the bottom of which were the fine-tuning controls for direction. She gently gripped the bundles of nerve-ending-enriched conjunctive tissue that served as fine controls for speed, acceleration and direction. The walls of the holes for the hands, the saddle itself and the stirrups were also of sensible flesh, and allowed the ship to sense every movement of the pilot: hand, arms, hips, legs, feet, and the weight of the shoulders could easily be guessed by the contact with the saddle or the hand-controls. Those indications, collectively designed by Mirrresh pilots as body-controls, served as general heading, switch from thrusters to warp or back, and also for emergency evasion moves that did not necessitate the fine tuning of the hand-controls.

Just before she pushed her head into the pilot helmet, which the ship tried to hold as high as possible to refuse to surrender to her, Merrrshika said to the Doctor:

"If he unsheaths me, shedate him. Trry to go to the shickbay, I'm afrraid the crrew had a biovirrush. Deck five, parrt thrree, you acchessh it by the main shtairrway, behind you at yourr left."

"Very well."

"Be carreful, there might be… shome rrocking and rrolling."

Then, she turned and dived into the pilot helmet. Immediately, a symphony of alarms started to resound and flash all around her in the pilot helmet. It was a device that covered her face and ears, transmitting a tactical view of the space ahead of them, which she could rotate at will by specific moves of the eyes, and a 3-D sound environment, whether that of tactical reports from the situation outside the ship, or anything on internal sensors, as she ordered by another set of eye and face movements. She rapidly surveyed the internal sensors, already being aware of the scared flock of females outside, and noticed grimly that almost none of the ship was free of alarms; some warnings were less violent, flashing dully in near-X-ray, others were of the eclipse or violent colors, displaying a greater state of emergency for the ship. All this flashing within her range of vision was ready to dizzy Merrrshika, and she expanded to a maximum the pilot room area, as it was the less abundant in alarms, being protected by the strongest part of the shield, two arms and a whip-like appendage over it.

At least, the ship was answering basic requests, recognizing a Mirrresh in the saddle. She asked for a vision of the exterior, and the hundreds of flashing alarms were replaced by a thousand shooting stars, evidence of the ship rocking furiously. Merrrshika started, and the ship had a triumphant jump, slanting into the beginning of a flip no doubt aiming at getting the arrogant Mirrresh he didn't know off the saddle.

Onboard _Voyager_, everyone observed the ample, disorganized moves of the war vessel, the herd edging away from him carefully, and the other male that surveyed the situation from a distance, looking undecided.

"My God," Kathryn said.

"This is what she calls "not much resistance left"?", Chakotay wondered, completing Janeway's unspoken thought.

Kim had his eyes on the view screen instead of on the sensors as was his duty. But as everyone was roughly doing the same, there was no one to call him to order.

Merrrshika strengthened her grip on the controls, almost brutally, and the ship shied. This reminded her of a ship she had piloted once, long ago, as she was visiting different space stations raising shuttles, before she found and bought her shuttle. So, she let go of the "reins", relaxed her arms, pushing the ship with her legs and slanting it left-hand with her hips and shoulders. The ship rushed forward with his heavy gait, at times making a few shakes and jumps out of line, but circling the group of females in a loose control by the pilot.

Merrrshika took three turns around the herd to calm and slow him down, and finally he obeyed her and stopped; he was exhausted and not in shape for much more fighting anyway. She affectedly scratched the saddle side and asked for his name. The name displayed itself in the pilot's helmet, and she told him by a strange mix of words and body language that she would help him to heal, and that he had to contact _Voyager_, the mechanical vessel that was there to help them.

"Merrrshika to captain Janeway," she tried by the ship's channels.

"Go ahead! We're glad to hear from you."

"His name is Pshi. He's underr my contrrol. Of courrshe it'sh not frriendship yet, but he underrshtands who's the bossh. If you agrree, I would like to heal the violent alarrms of thish vesshel, then take contrrol of the otherr one. Afterr that, I will prrobably be able to calm the female enough to lower theirr hyperr bassh frrequencies trranshmissions, sho you can come closerr."

"Agreed," Janeway approved. "Is there something we can do to help you?"

"Not yet. I'll go check the Doctorr now."

The communication closed, without even a polite "Merrrshika out". Janeway lifted a slightly displeased eyebrow; the hacker still had to be schooled about Starfleet protocol. Tuvok, as a good security officer, remarked:

"A captain should not let a member of the crew decide of the right course of action."

"I am aware of that, Tuvok, but she is not yet familiar with all our regulations. Moreover, her current course of action appears correct and effective."

Tuvok acknowledged quietly; after all, he also thought that there was not much for them to do now but wait for Merrrshika to tell them what they could do next.


	9. First Aid Treatments

_Aditu: Thank you for the reviews. Hm, you know you just made me realize what terrible un-biologist-like assumption I just made. I always imagined an arthropod-like (insect, crustacean, chelicerate and the like) life form would be most fit for a biological vessel, because of the solid exoskeleton (chitine) that could easily be modified for a ship's hull and internal walls. And here I go and write that they get "pregnant" just like a mammal. Tsk tsk tsk. Now I'll have to consider they are modified mammals. Although writing internal fecundation happening in space promises some fun, lol, and embarrassment for the pilot… but this goes much further into the story. You'll have to be patient if you want to read about that ;-). Btw, I do like the idea of Tom as a ship-whisperer, lol. Being myself a cowboy (well, switched to English dressage recently, but anyway), I am glad that I got the "horseback riding" feeling through this chapter :-) More to come, I promise._

_Hm, so if anyone else wishes to make me re-visit my assumptions, it will be most welcome :-) Please, keep reviewing!_

Chapter IX. First aid treatments

Merrrshika told the vessel that she would soon leave him with someone onboard to care for his wounds, while she would go to "meet" the other male. Pshi did not react.

Mirrresh organic vessels possessed their own intelligence and personality. Just like the Mirrresh piloting them, they were "team-telepaths", which allowed them to understand more than their limited proper intelligence might let them comprehend. Merrrshika and Pshi, however, were not yet a team; the telepathical link was not established, and communicating something else than the basic orders for flying the vessel and assuring environmental controls was not yet possible.

Merrrshika was not sure that Pshi had understood what she had said beyond that it implied healing for him and a visit for the other male, but she gave a friendly pat to the saddle, not waiting for an answer that would not come anyway. So, she made her way towards the sickbay, where the Doctor no doubt would be by now.

She had been on board such a war vessel on two occasions before, when she had been hired as a free consultant to evaluate and reinforce the hacking capacities of the mechanic console and its personnel. She could find her way around the ship without too much trouble. She went down two decks, then took the necessary turns and tried not to pay too much attention to the few members of the crew still lying in the corridors. She found the sickbay's doors at last. She pushed the control for the opening, wondering if the doctor had needed as much time to understand how to open the doors as she had needed to stop looking for a button on _Voyager_.

As the doors opened, Merrrshika's keen ears were assaulted by a thousand more alarms resounding all around sickbay. The Doctor was busying himself looking through a series of devices that were stocked in a lodging compartment near the center of the room. There was a pile of presumably useless things on one side of him, amidst the debris scattered across the floor, splashes of Pshi's eclipse blood, and cloths stained with the violent blood of Mirrresh crew.

Merrrshika's eyes scanned the room and soon found the corpses of the crew, lined on the floor in a middle of the sickbay, covered with a violet sheet, but there were so many corpses that many were sharing the same sheet, and she could guess by the position of the bodies that it was the doctor that had moved them from various positions.

"Hi Doctor," Merrrshika said darkly. "Do you know the cause of theirr deathsh?", she asked rather abruptly.

"Phaser burns, unknown metallic bullets, knifes, depressurisation, bites and falling beams and roofs of this vessel."

"No biovirrush?", Merrrshika insisted.

"Not according to my data," the Doctor answered.

"Show me a bullet," the Mirrresh demanded.

The Doctor gave her a small octagonal piece of metal, with a concave end and a doubled pointed front.

"These arre Warri bulletsh. Sheems like a light asshault weapon, frrom the shize. Mirrresh grreatesht ennemies. They always wanted ourr shipsh to fight togetherr with theirr flying computerrs."

"Your ships!", the Doctor exclaimed. "You mean, your mess of useless artefacts?"

"What uselessh arrtefactsh?", Merrshika asked, her voice even and lifeless.

"All those things looking like scanners, with a hollow screen," the Doctor answered with a constant displeasure. "I don't have a clue of what happened here and I have no idea how I can access the vital organs of the vessel!"

As he spoke, he continuously piled "useless artefacts" to his right in a growing mount at the feet of the corpses of people of her race. Merrrshika took a scanner, and fingered a few touches.

"It'sh worrking perrfectly," she noted. "It'sh in nearr-Xh-rray; I think B'Elanna adjusted your visual range for longer wavelengths of ultra-violet, so you can't shee it. Teleporrt back to _Voyagerr_ and ashk B'Elanna to modify yourr visual rrange to match mine."

Then, the Doctor noticed how sad she seemed, and it dawned on him, with a little shame, that he had failed his duty as medical officer not to have noticed earlier. He was about to apologize or something, when she paused and said:

"Doctorr, did you notiche… a Mirrresh with an irron claw on the left hand? It'sh the captain."

"Yes," he answered softly.

"Wherre is he?"

"Why do you…", he began.

"Wherre!"

She no longer had her sunglasses, so her could see her eyes filled with tears. He walked forward, and stopped next to a body. He slowly pulled the sheet off the face of the captain, who was female.

"I don't know herr," Merrrshika said softly.

She covered the face once more, then she turned around and said, walking briskly out of sickbay, followed by the Doctor:

"I'll take you to the teleporrting hall. I will wait forr you to come back, then I will teleporrt to the otherr male."

The Doctor nodded, but as he trailed besides her, he asked:

"Is everything fine, Merrrshika? You look distressed, understandably…"

"I am not a military, Doctor. I never saw someone who died a violent death before, except maybe my uncle who fell off a cliff while climbing, but it is not the same. The fifty-seven crewmembers of this ship are dead. No. They are not dead, they are murdered. And… I am not a military. This kind of sight is _not_ something I consider a… regrettable but inevitable part of my duty."

Her eyes were filling with tears as she spoke, and the Doctor put a reassuring arm around her shoulders.

"I understand," he said.

They walked on in silence.

ooooo

It took an hour to master Pshi, an hour to match the Doctor's range of visible wavelengths to hers, and another hour to take a relative control over the second male, whose name was Shrrrri. During that time, Harry and B'Elanna were designing another kind of filtering glasses, one that would block ultra-violet, and Tuvok was preparing protective suits for the officers that would have to journey onboard the organic vessels.

The five first pairs of "sunglasses" were given to Tom and other sickbay crewmen. Two were teleported on Pshi to give a hand to the Doctor, while Paris and two others went to Shrrri with Merrrshika.

She passed the four following hours sweating blood and tears in the bowels of Shrrri. Organic vessels hardly had any space to spare, so the equivalent of the Jeffrey's tubes was necessarily a small space. They stopped an undetermined number of haemorrhage, repaired an alarming number of fractures (among which two vertebrae, which were reinforced by long beams of metal gifted by Voyager), realigned torn nerves by the dozens, released the sealing of respiratory and aeration ways, reinforced aneurisms, freed oedemas.

After these four hours, she left Shrrri in the hands of Tom and his team, and teleported onboard Pshi. Her knowledge of the ship's anatomy, her litheness and Pshi's trust in her were also useful to the Doctor's team. She could reach a nerve buried in a mass of cartilage, when such a move would have dislocated a human's shoulder, and the Doctor did not dare to just move his arms through a part of Pshi's body, afraid he might perceive and be irritated that he was a mechanical being. So, he let Merrrshika do it. She could also, if necessary, pinch a sensible part of the vessel to limit his resistance to an unpleasant or painful treatment.

For the next twelve hours, the nurses' teams took shifts of four hours, changing ships to take care of the most urgent wound. After this time, it seemed both Pshi and Shrrri were ready to accept eagerly and gratefully any healing they would get, and had forgotten about the mechanical vessel orbiting nearby. Merrrshika then allowed herself to come back on _Voyager_. She slipped her sunglasses back on with a sigh.

Janeway called a meeting, and all the senior officers were made aware of the progress that was made with the ships' condition. There was a collective sigh of relief on the bridge, which Merrrshika could "feel" more than hear, and she felt sorry that she did not only have good news.

"They'rre shtarrving," she announced. "Herre, they have coverr but no food. They need gash and dusht beforre long, otherrwise they will die, out of enerrgy. Oh… Did I mention? They use shtellarr gash fusion as shourche of enerrgy."

"We are willing to help them," Janeway began carefully, "but what can we do?"

"They won't need much to shurrvive. Two shuttles equipped with trractorr beams would be enough to brring back enough food forr all of them."

At an affirmative nod of the captain, B'Elanna and Harry went off to equip two shuttles with a tractor beam. B'Elanna grumbled something about being paid double shifts in the Maquis, but was unheard by anyone but Chakotay and Kim.

"The males arre feeling a lot betterr now," Merrrshika went on. "They arre rreasshurred about ush and theirr calm shprreads overr the females and the babys. Theirr hyperr bassh frrequenchies arre twiche lowerr. You can get a little closerr and gain coverr by the giant planet therre. Be carreful, though, to always fache the females as if you were watching them, and follow the males moves. They will underrshtand that you arre offerring prrotection."

"Understood," Janeway said with a touch of acidity that did not go unnoticed by Merrrshika.

"If you allow me, Captain, I would like to go on one of the shuttles, to be surre it'sh the good type of gash and dusht. Usually, the Mirrresh camp within half an hourr at warrp one of a food shourche. It won't be long."

"Agreed. We will continue to heal the males and scan for mirrresh vessels. Dismissed," the Captain concluded.

"Thank you, Captain Janeway. "

Three hours later, she was back, with the two shuttles and two full loads of gas. They released the "food" in the middle of the herd, which scattered warily around the small mechanical shuttles, but soon the prospect of food won over fear and the shuttles hastily escaped as every organic ship rushed forward to capture its share of food. Merrrshika requested of Voyager to take a visual record of the feeding, so she could see which vessels were dominant or dominated. But now, she was too tired to keep her interest up. Surely, tomorrow, she would study it. But now, she let Kim monitor the recording, made her report to Janeway, and escaped to her quarters.

She did not even take the time or make the effort to remove her clothes. She just removed her belt and the kind of sleeve that covered her tail. After that, she lay down in bed, told herself the day had been less disastrous than could be expected, that thirty human hours could be long indeed, that she was exhausted and that many long human hours of slumber would be most delicious.

She knew nothing until the next "morning", when the first thing she was aware of was a terrible stiffness in all parts of her abused body.


	10. Ships' Affair Conclusion

_Hey! I'm back! I hope you didn't give me up for missing forever. University demands have been surprisingly urgent these past two weeks, so… didn't write much. But now I have another chapter, here it is!_

_Again, and always, thank you ever so much for the reviews :)_

Chapter X. The ships' affair conclusion

Five days, following Merrrshika's biological calendar, passed by before the Mirrresh arrived, alarmed, at maximal warp, on red alert, shield to maximum and ready to fire.

Those five days were not wasted away. All alerts but the most trivial ones had been repaired on both Pshi and Shrrri, Merrrshika was beginning a good friendship with Pshi, the three dominant females of the herd had been identified, the count of survivals, deaths and disappearances had been made among Mirrresh crew and vessels, and two orphans vessels were spotted, a young male and female. Left to themselves, they always revolved near the outer rim of the herd, completely silent, without trying to make contact with other ships.

Merrrshika had "disguised" _Voyager_ in the perfect mother: along with B'Elanna, Harry and a whole army of engineering's crewmen, she had programmed and scattered on the outer hull a ton of small devices set to emit ultra-violet that would match the pattern of a mothership after the birth. The team had also programmed other devices to produce reassuring hyper-bass-frequencies in all the emission range and randomized harmonics dosage until both orphans recognized in _Voyager_ the vocal signature of their mother. Besides those two mothers, the herd had lost nine other females, unaccounted for and probably captured, ten newborns, found dead of phaser burns or photon torpedoes, and eight male warships, also found dead. Only one male was unaccounted for and probably captured.

The attackers had not had a remarkable success, but the Mirrresh were still very angry when they stumbled out of warp speed and arrived within fire range of _Voyager_. They were stopped immediately by Pshi and Shrrri who interposed between the flotilla and the alpha quadrant's vessel. Janeway hailed the commanding ship, easily recognizable to the grey polished metal covering the excrescence protecting the bridge, but there was no answer. Merrrshika, however, in Pshi's pilot seat, received a paranoiac and extremely displeased diatribe when she called the same vessel via Pshi's radio channel. Head tucked in the pilot helmet, hands and legs ready to order an evasive manoeuvre, she listened without batting an eyelid at the admiral – no less – calling her a crazy fool to come back within Mirrresh territory after being pardoned. He also told her that she was dragging _Voyager_'s crew into death with her, that she was again betraying her whole planet, that she had provoked irreparable damage in killing and capturing the ships.

She capitalized on a moment when the admiral was taking back his breath to offer some precisions:

"_Voyagerr_ and I arrived herre _afterr_ the vesshels werre dead, gone orr wounded. Actually, we helped to heal the two males left and we offerred prrotection to the whole herrd."

"And I'm shupposed to believe that! What do you take me forr!", the commanding officer of the flotilla barked.

"Ashk Pshi and Shrrri," Merrrshika answered calmly. "Oh, by the way, _Voyager_'s medical officherr found Warri bulletsh in mosht of the Mirrresh bodies we found lying everrywhere in the vesshels. Therre werre many bulletsh in nerrves or passhages walls too. The chanches arre there arre shtill shome left."

A third person, via the commanding vessel's pilot helmet, requested to take part in the discussion. Merrrshika linked him to Pshi's channels, and to her surprise she recognized Sherrrim, with whom she had had many run-ins, both as a criminal hacker and as a legal informatics consultant. Sherrrim just so happened to be both a good pilot and hacker. Merrrshika had found him considerably harder to fool than the average military officers she usually dealt with in her quality of occasional consultant – she did her job well, but she rarely felt compelled to write down the most tiny and interesting details in her reports.

"You took a grreat rrishk to meet Mirrresh jusht afterr you prromised to go in the alpha quadrrant," Sherrrim began. "Merrrshika, why did you come herre, firrsht of all?"

"I'm shtill heading forr the alpha quadrrant, don't worry. I wanted to buy a ship, a shmall shuttle. I missh orrganic piloting."

The hair on the admiral's face suddenly stood, giving him a ruffled hair. He narrowed his eyes dangerously and his ears slanted sideways. Even for the humans, it was a body language that bespoke of fury, and it needed no intercultural explanation. But Sherrrim _had_ had many run-ins with Merrrshika, so he asked, his tone that of appraising interest:

"How would you pay?"

Merrrshika uncovered her impressive teeth in a predatory smile.

"I designed a bio-mechanical interrfache during the lasht two yearrs. I can give you a prrototype. It'sh an interrfache that allows an orrganic vesshel to rrecheive and shend data to a mechanical vesshel without using the usual communication and converrsion patterrns. In fact, it'sh like a _Voyager_ conshol able to connect with an orrganic vesshel."

The admiral had shut his mouth and his hair was standing down. Sherrrim gave Merrrshika an appreciative stare and made a roguish wink, while the admiral turned around to discuss with his councillors. In the end, the Mirrresh commanding officer requested a meeting on board Pshi, deemed the most neutral ground they could find in the vicinity, to whom he could also ask for a report of the past weeks.

Merrrshika held back her sigh of relief. It was clear now that she would get what she had asked for. And it was all thanks to Sherrrim, again, which was interesting. If she had been told that she would be saved by one of her old adversaries twice, she would have thought it highly unlikely. But then she made a wry smile; it was probable that if Sherrrim had been told that he would find a hacker worthy of his benevolence twice, he would have found it highly unlikely also.

So, two hours later, a meeting was held in the meeting room of Pshi. The admiral Arrrish, the captain Janeway, Chakotay, Merrrshika and the Doctor were present, along with Arrrish's engineers and councillors. Merrrshika had carried with her a strange violet console, with buttons and plugs of non-standard and unorthodox shapes and sizes. She presented it to the Mirrresh engineers – among which Sherrrim, which forced her to be absolutely truthful and to give them more useful details than she might have in other circumstances – and explained to them the basic functions of the consol, and surrendered it officially before the witnesses. Then, the admiral Arrrish officially sold her the two orphan shuttles and thanked her to have led _Voyager_ to the nebula and have offered assistance.

And then, _Voyager_ took back the road to the alpha quadrant, at impulse speed at the moment, followed by two fearful but quiet shuttles.

ooooo

Kathryn was not displeased to definitively leave Mirrresh space behind, and Merrrshika had assured her there was no region of space ahead of them where they were likely to meet more than a few scattered exploration vessels or merchant ships.

The captain was in her private quarters, sipping on a black coffee while filling her journal, when her door rang. She invited the other in and was surprised to see Merrrshika standing in the doorway, timid and hesitant.

"Do come in," Janeway invited again.

Merrrhika timidly made a few steps forward, then said with the look of a child that must apologize to his parents:

"Captain, I'm shorry to come to yourr perrshonnal quarrterrs, but I wanted to shee you in a prrivate place."

"That's ok, Merrshika."

The Mirrresh took a breath, then said :

"I wanted to apologize."

Kathryn looked at her struggling to state her mind.

"What for?", she prompted her again.

"Because… I know you arre the captain, and I took a lot of command and gave many orrderrs durring the five lasht days. Shorry, forr you it musht be like… height or nine days. I wanted to tell you that I didn't want to contesht yourr authorrity or ability to lead a misshion."

Kathryn smiled kindly.

"It's alright, Merrshika. I appreciate that you explain it to me, but we didn't have much choices besides listening to you. So, do you want a coffee or a tea?"

Merrrshika smiled impishly again as she refused.

"No thanksh, eitherr would be toxhic to me! You know what I found on Pshi?"

"What?", Janeway asked, taking another sip of coffee.

"A _whole_ database about Mirrresh food. I will be able to eat shomething elshe than ishterr tarrtarr shteak. And I alrready added shomething equivalent to yourr coffee in the rreplicatorr database."

She stepped forward and requested a "brrremi, hot" to the replicator. She took the eclipse cup in her ultra-violet-furred hand, then lifted her cup in Kathryn's direction, who answered in kind. They "took the tea" together that day, enjoying a small talk that neither truly gave in very often.


	11. Holodeck Programs

_Hello again! It's been such a long time… I'm sorry. But I promise I haven't forgotten this story. See, I just posted a new chapter. I hope I didn't lose everyone's attention because of the gap in time._

_As usual, a big heartfelt thank you for my reviewers :) and please, keep reviewing (: I hope you enjoy!_

Chapter XI. Holodeck programs

Merrrshika met Kathryn and Chakotay at holodeck two. After the statutory salute, she explained her project to the captain and her first officer:

"I want to begin to trrain pilotsh forr my shuttles with hologrrams. I thought it would prrevent inexperrienched pilotsh to do terrible mishtakesh with rreal shuttles. Sho I prrogrramed two trraining prrogrrams forr pilotsh. One is a shimulation of my shuttles' pilot shaddles. The otherr one is a prrogrram of a herrd of horshes."

"I can understand why you did a simulation of a shuttle, but why a simulation of horses?", Chakotay inquired. "And where did you learn of horses?"

"I jusht ashked arround. Prretty much everry rrache of humanoids used shome shpecies orr anotherr of beasht of burrden to rride and move morre quickly in the firrsht times of hishtorry. Tom was the one who told me of the horrshes of Earrth, if you wish to know, and the database told me the rresht. As forr the rreason why I prrogrrammed a herrd of horrshes… Therre," she sighed, "is a prroblem with shecurrity," she admitted grudgingly.

Janeway and Chakotay glanced at each other. You had to expect security failures with a hacker around, Janeway thought, chagrined that her beloved _Voyager_ was falling from her pedestal since Merrrshika was around.

"Yourr computerr can't prrogrram a shecurrity line againsht falls," Merrrshika clarified.

The captain shook her head.

"How is that a problem?"

"Do you rrememberr all the moves Pshi did the firrsht time I rrode him? He rrolled, pitched and moved to trry to get me out of the shaddle. He bit my arrms, too, and shcrratched my hands. Yourr computerr can prrogrram a securrity againsht bitesh and shcratches, but not againsht falling off the shaddle. And everrybody falls the firrsht times they rride."

"You mean that our computer can't prevent people from physically falling on the ground when they fall off the holographic saddle?", Chakotay asked, trying to clarify things.

"Yesh. I could inshtall a rreal shecurrity net, sho people would get bruises in the worrsht cases. But I wanted a prrogrram that could be a trraining forr the shuttles. Horrses arre alike my shuttles; they have theirr perrshonnality, theirr fears, theirr bad moods, but their fachial exhprresshion is easierr to guessh, if you know what I mean. Alsho, horrshes arre not as dangerroush as shuttles, because bitesh, rrearrs, crrushed toes and kicksh can be painlessh with shecurrity prrotocols."

Merrrshika paused, then went on, a bit embarrassed:

"I wanted to warrn you beforre I let people trry my prrogrrams. You can rrefuse them the accessh to my prrogrrams; nobody will everr hack thrrough my shecurrity. But thish is my only way to trrain them and my only way to pay you all back."

Kathryn rolled her eyes.

"Two more shuttles with good pilots couldn't hurt in all the battles we've been through. But I can't let my crew get injured in a holodeck simulation. I will consult the Doctor and ask him what he thinks about the risks of your programs, if you install a security net."

"Alrright, Captain."

Chakotay and Kathryn left the holodeck space, while Merrrshika was calling the Doctor, activating her horses program and starting a simulation with the medical officer.

Five hours later, the security net was installed and the Doctor had declared the programs' use to be without serious danger. He recommended strongly, however, the use of protective equipment. He also advised in favour of a maximum number of people to be in simulation at any given time, and a prescribed number of hours of riding with supervision before the loading of Merrrshika's program by a rider was allowed.

This last measure forced serious restrictions on the total number of people that could try the program. In consequence, Janeway decided with Merrrshika that she should begin by testing the thirty or so pilots on board _Voyager_, whether they were pilots to war vessels or civilian transport ships, then choose five that she would train intensively. Once those pilots would be experienced enough to train alone, she could train five other pilots.

With her days of thirty hours, she could easily train two groups at a time, one after the other, and experienced pilots could train alone while she was sleeping, before giving them another lesson in her "mornings".

Merrrshika approved, only she had one more request to the captain:

"I would like to trrain two morre perrshons, who arre not experrtsh pilotsh, but I think they could be exchellent too."

"Of course, we will try to arrange their schedule to match one test, if they wish to participate. Who were you thinking about?", Janeway asked.

"Enshign Kim and lieutenant-commanderr Tuvok."

Janeway and Chakotay again glanced at each other, this time a look that made Merrrshika fear that she would be dismissed so they could discuss matters privately. She hurried to add, before she was ordered away:

"I would like Tuvok to be trrained because he is a telepath and that can help a grreat deal with orrganic vesshels with prrimitve communication shyshtems. I believe Harry would be good because he is an easy-going perrshon, but he shtill manages to be rreshpected. It is a good attitude with horrshes and shuttles."

Tuvok was almost sick with curiosity – judging by Vulcan standards, of course – regarding those mysterious holodeck programs. It was certain he would agree to participate. Kim, for his part, gave the impression that he would not refuse a training program that allowed him to spend time with Merrrshika, especially if she asked herself.

ooooo

The next day, on Merrrshika's biological calendar, she was in the faithful holodeck two with a happy group of five potential pilots who felt very privileged and were impatient to discover what awaited them. Nobody had the slightest idea regarding the programs' contents; she had not been generous on details and the officers had not slipped a word.

When she arrived, she harboured her ruffled hairstyle, wore clothes slightly different than the ones she usually wore, taller and thicker, wore no gloves and was smiling with all her pointed teeth. The group facing her comprised Tom Paris, Harry Kim, Tuvok, Kathryn Janeway and the beta-shift pilot, Brad Murphy. She welcomed them, then asked Janeway:

"Captain, did you tell them anything?"

"No ma'am," the captain answered, amused.

"Verrry good," Merrrshika rejoiced with a worrying glee. "Don't tell them now. Ok, I want you all to shtay calm. Computerr, rrun the holo prrogrram HRSHRD, folderr TRAINPROGMERRR, in the auxiliarry HD."

The computer produced two sounds one after the other; the first one meant that it tried to connect to an auxiliary network and the second one showing that the connection was established.

"Password?", the feminine voice of the computer inquired.

"Hey, what's that irregular procedure?", Kim rebelled.

"Shterrika lock," Merrrshika said with a wink.

"Wrong password," the computer intoned. "Preparing emergency shutdown. Please confirm password."

"Merrrshika, thrree times zerro, one, fun."

Immediately a landscape materialized around them. They were in the middle of a vast plain, with a sun that was far and cold. The air was dry, as were the few bushes and grass. On the far away slope of the gentle hollow where they were, there were trees with orange-coloured leaves. On their right was a building, long and low, with numerous windows and tall doors. Closer to them, however, were four fences forming a paddock, and the six horses held within the paddock.

Said horses were galloping towards them happily in a thunder of hoof beats and a cloud of dust.

Merrrshika laughed as her potential pilots all disappeared running the other way and slid between the fence's bars. After a while, though, she noticed that Harry was still somewhere behind her, relatively close, and it was written all over his stance that the only thought that held him in his spot was the existence of security protocols. His eyes were shut tightly. He showed more logic than even Tuvok! Merrrshika laughed and paused the program once the horses had slowed down to a reasonable pace.

"Damned, are you here to test us or to kill us?", Tom exclaimed with his usual spirit.

"To tesht you," she answered with a smile. "Everrybody, come back herre. I will reshtarrt my prrogrram. Rrememberr, therre is no dangerr, shecurrity is online."

The potential pilots were visibly calmer when she restarted the program and the horses moved about them at a leisurely pace, smelling them curiously.

"Come on," Merrrshika encouraged, "thish can't be worrshe than Shtarrfleet shelection teshtsh?"

"It's not," Harry admitted, "but at least we have an idea of what we should prepare for!"

"And you werre prreparred to end up in the delta quadrrant?", Merrrshika replied coolly.

There was a silence and Tom appeared to grow a backbone.

"Now," Merrrshika announced, "I will intrroduche you to each horshe. Therre arre sheven horrshesh: one shtallion, one prregnant marre, two geldings and thrree morre marres. You will make a choiche and I will obserrve you a while as you carre forr them."

The stallion was called Oural and was the colour of shining copper in the sunlight. He also happened to be quick, but not mean, and readily ran quicker than the rider intended to. The pregnant mare was a thoroughbred called Eclipse, full of energy and nervous, but listening to her rider attentively. The two geldings were gray: one was Hoshaba, an Arabian horse of steady calm and assurance in all circumstances, the other Garranos, an Andalusian of massive built that was hard to get moving, but very affectionate. There was another thoroughbred, a black mare by the original name of Daisy, born and bred to race and with the fiery temper that came with it. There was also a jumping horse by the name of Walendorf, with an unstoppable enthusiasm that made her playful and hard to keep still. The last horse, Ossétie, was a fearful white mare with a sure foot that required much patience and gentleness from a rider.

Janeway chose Oural, the stallion, almost without hesitation. Harry went with Ossétie. No real surprise so far, Merrrshika thought wryly. Tuvok hesitated a while before he chose Garranos, the dressage horse that was prone to like his riders. And the Vulcan tried to maintain the claim that he had no feelings! Paris chose Daisy, probably seduced by promises of speed, but looked at the halter in his hand as though it was a threatening object. Murphy, as any fighter pilot would, chose Walendorf; it seemed a good choice since she would be willing to try everything he dared to.

Merrrshika looked at her group with a fond smile as they all turned back to happy teenagers under her eyes as they tried to catch horses by giving them a handful of oatmeal. Kathryn was the first one to manage to put the halter on despite the agitation of the stallion. The last one to succeed was Tom, although the blame was to be laid at Daisy's feet.

Once all the horses were tied to the stables' wall, the group followed Merrrshika's instructions and started to rub down their horses. The Mirrresh walked among them, observing them to see who were the most at ease.

Tom was having trouble, obviously, since his horse was the hardest to deal with, but his own attitude too was wrong. Tom was a nervous kind, impatient and a little curt. He said what he thought, when he thought it, and how he thought it. His moves reflected the same vitality. With horses and organic shuttles, it was better to be calmer and more deliberate, unless one planned to race for speed, win, be rich and pay a groom full-time to care for the animal without driving him crazy with agitation.

Tom's character somehow reminded Merrrshika of the male shuttle she had rescued from the herd of Mirrresh ships. She knew Tom's fighting style was not in finesse and elaborate evasive manoeuvres. Brutal assault was likely to suit both Tom and the shuttle. On the other hand, Merrrshika hesitated to entrust the male shuttle to someone so spontaneous. She could not afford a brutally efficient shuttle whose aggressively forced it to isolation. There was not enough place on board _Voyager_ for such a rebellious shuttle.

And so, with Tom more or less eliminated because of his fiery attitude, Janeway was the first choice to pilot the male so far. The simple fact that she had chosen the stallion was already telling much. She seemed relatively at ease, but not quite assured enough, according to Merrrshika. It was already certain that the male shuttle would have a hell of a temper; he would need someone firm with him and Merrrshika was not certain that Kathryn could be. She had already seen the captain use the "iron fist in a velvet glove" tactic many times in interstellar diplomacy. Maybe she would attain the same attitude with horses and shuttles, with time…

Murphy was getting along marvellously with Walendorf. He was brushing her with one hand and playing with her with the other, pulling at a rope she was holding in her teeth. He seemed to be having fun and was keeping the mare busy in an ingenious manner. Merrrshika decided to keep him in reserve as a pilot for the male in case Janeway could not free herself from the captain's responsibilities.

Garranos seemed to appreciate Tuvok's presence, who seemed to like the experience too. Merrrshika risked this assessment of the Vulcan's state of mind by his stance, that seemed less stiff and formal. His strokes with the brush were exaggeratedly precise, however. Merrrshika smiled to herself. Vulcans assuredly had an astounding success in dressage in all the galaxy, with their discipline and meticulous accuracy.

The most impressive member of the team, however, was Harry. Ossétie already showed him great trust. She was relaxed and calm, despite all the strangers present around her and of Daisy and Tom next to her, who were moving a lot. Kim moved around his horse with a lot of ease and softness. It seemed natural to him to always touch her and speak to her often to reassure her, which was exactly the attitude to adopt. He definitively was her first choice to pilot the female shuttle. Tuvok would have to be the second choice. With a pilot's helmet and reins in his hands, the Vulcan would probably know instinctively how to act. Merrrshika had seen him handle individuals of many unknown alien species in the exact way; he probably used his sense of empathy a great deal, but always staying respectful of other people's minds.

Seeing them on horseback only confirmed what she had already guessed. Kathryn had a great potential but lacked a bit of assurance. Tuvok had enough gentleness and steady precision to pilot the female shuttle. Kim was still as much impressive in calm and shared trust with his fearful mount. Murphy was doing good with Walendorf and Merrrshika saw in him the reflexes of a good acrobatics pilot: he was holding himself ready, his muscles half-tensed, scanning visually his surroundings repeatedly and quickly. Tom was having trouble, but his horse moved a lot, and Merrrshika finally opened her program's parameters to calm Daisy a bit; things were better for him after that, but he still had this nervousness that would not agree with the male shuttle.

After a mere hour on horseback, she ordered them to stop and care for their horse again. She observed them secretly a bit more, noting some more information on an holographic pad that would transfer everything to a database designed to help in the choice of the best candidates.

Then she pushed everyone out with a smile to greet the second wave of potential pilots coming to be tested. She ordered sternly to those leaving not to reveal anything of the simulation to anyone, knowing full well that, unless this was some freaky full-security military secret vessel, the whole vessel would know everything about her program down to the tiniest detail.

She smiled with her unnerving pointed teeth to the new wave of pilots, repeated her instructions to keep calm, and started up her simulation again.


	12. Test Flight

_I know I'm updating this story very slowly, but RL is quite busy with writing at work these days, so I feel more like playing than writing in my free times these days… Don't worry though, I'll finish this story… one day._

_Vega Lyrae: thanks for that correction :)_

_Eternity's End: thanks for reading and reviewing :)_

Chapter XII. Test flight

Merrrshika needed two days and a half to review all of _Voyager_'s pilots. The four pilots chosen for the first round of training comprised Brad Murphy, Tom's substitute who worked the beta shift, Harry, Janeway and Tuvok. Chakotay, however, objected to the captain being forced to be on another vessel in the eventuality of battle. Kathryn agreed and asked Merrrshika to find a replacement for her. The Mirrresh added to her list one of the junior security officers, Mike Robinson, who had taken many piloting credits while at Starfleet Academy and had proven to be excellent with Oural and Daisy.

The intensive training began right the next day. At first, Janeway had planned to have the pilots take their whole shift in the holodeck riding holographic horses, but Merrrshika objected. She foresaw – with reason – that the poor crewmen just would not survive such a treatment. The captain therefore cut the horseback training to four hours a day, which was amply sufficient to exhaust them.

Merrrshika adjusted as best she could the length of her days to adapt to the human schedule. For three human days, she trained her pilots during the first half of their shift. She ended up going to bed in the middle of the second day's afternoon, and would wake just in time to give a lesson in the morning of the third day. For the fourth day, her sleeping hours overlapped the whole length of the human day shift and the riders would get a day off. It was hard for Merrrshika to make the length of her days vary in that way, but she managed quite well, usually sleeping late on the fourth human day.

She was rather happy not to be the only one to find the first week difficult. The entire crew of _Voyager_ mocked the four future pilots, who dragged their stiffness along anywhere they went. People asked them in jest to sit at the mess hall's high seats around Neelix's counter, or cross-legged in the yoga classes. Everyone had a good laugh for a week to watch them stand and walk stiffly with little steps. Merrrshika was having fun too. She was quite stiff herself, since it was a long time since she had ridden a pilot's saddle, but she was not in as bad a shape as the _Voyager_ riders.

The training went well, in any event. Merrrshika knew she could not make them ride non-stop for four hours; there was a time when muscular fatigue overwhelmed any ability to learn. So she had them muck the stables, empty holographic wheelbarrows of hay, carry holographic bundles of fodder, and polish and shine the real leather of their protective gear. She also took time to give them some theoretical classes about shuttle piloting, with them sitting on bales of hay and taking notes about what she wrote on a holographic slate board. Although her species was advanced enough in technology to master warp travel, the people tended to keep technology out of everyday life, and the twentieth-century-like barn she had programmed with the help of Tom's many researches was closer to home than any other place on _Voyager_.

The five future pilots were having fun together, and were beginning to form a real team. Merrrshika first got glimpses into Harry's thoughts, as it had happened previously. He was a tad envious of Robinson and Murphy who could master Daisy, Oural and Walendorf. Harry had no equal when it came to care for quiet Ossétie or gentle Garranos, but he would still have preferred the panache and glory of the fighter pilots. He did not realize that it was on him that she had built the highest hopes.

The second one she managed to "hear" with her team telepathy was Tuvok. The communication was rudimentary at best, and usually consisted of small bits of punctual information: Harry tied Ossétie's throatlash one notch too loose, or Garranos seemed slightly, but significantly, stiffer than usual, was one of his legs hurt? Those were the usual concerns of the Vulcan she managed to catch. After that point, she began to hear them all more or less at the same time, when they were relaxed.

Aside from the more natural and less mechanical setting of the stables, it was home to her because she was in the company of friends whose warming presence she felt through telepathy.

ooooo

Outside of _Voyager_'s hull, training was taking place too. The two orphan shuttles followed _Voyager_ at impulse speed for a few Mirrresh days. They learned to recognize the ship's ion trail and UV signature, so they could recognize it in case they were temporarily separated.

Before _Voyager_ jumped back at warp speed, however, Merrrshika asked for the shuttles to be docked inside one of the cargo bays. There were always fabulous computing errors of trajectory when the biological shuttles attempted warp speed for the first time, and _Voyager_ was currently in relatively close vicinity of borg space.

The two shuttles were therefore restrained to fidget impatiently in _Voyager_'s hold for a Mirrresh week, which was the time Merrrshika used to train her pilots with her holographic program of horses.

Janeway had promised that they would soon need to stop to supply the ship in fuel, and Merrrshika would have many days, if not a few weeks, at her disposal to train the young shuttles in space. Merrrshika went to the hold each day, used telepathy to reassure them and familiarized them gradually to have someone on board, particularly in the cabin and in the pilot saddle. Merrrshika already knew, merely from walking on board and observing their reactions when she sat in the saddle and put on the helmet, that the female was all gentle and a little fearful. On the other hand, she would be an excellent leader for cargo caravans; she was already responsible, independent and able to do lots of things by herself without direct orders if she was shown it was what was expected of her. Merrrshika showed her how to interface with _Voyager_ and operate the cargo hold's walls, to change the configuration according to the position of Neelix's vessel. She could also pressurize or depressurize the docking bay, drain the toxin filters and modify the supply of gas and dust to the hold's atmosphere.

Merrrshika felt the beginning of a love relationship there, but she was aware that this was not a war vessel. The male, on the other hand, was more aggressive. He was almost mean, but not quite. He had probably suffered from the lack of motherly protection in the middle of the herd. He would no doubt do a good war shuttle, if a little on the brutal side of battle style. He would not be one to try elaborate evasive acrobatics with, but he would not hesitate to charge headlong towards a vessel six times his size until he was too close to be within range of the enemy's phasers.

ooooo

After eight Mirrresh days she spent training pilots with a horseback riding program, Merrrshika woke in the middle of the night shift of the fourth human day of her schedule. The first thing she noticed was the absence of the near-inaudible hum of the hull's vibration against the warp field surrounding the vessel when they moved above light speed. She jumped out of bed with a feral cry of joy and pulled the curtains aside abruptly to look outside, ignoring the sharp daggers of infra-violet light stabbing at her eyes. They were on high orbit over of a gas giant; it was obviously a busy merchant stop, from all the small shuttles and big hulking vessels zigzagging and floating all around.

When she reached the bridge after a spirited run, she learned from a grinning Janeway, who nevertheless made an effort to school her features to statutory seriousness, that they would be stopped for two human weeks, due to the fuel needing mining and hauling from a distant world.

Merrrshika's smile threatened to crease her face in half when she reached the shuttles' docking bay. The vessels immediately sensed her excitement. Merrrshika had brought her four apprentice pilots with her, barely out of bed, and had them go on board the female shuttle first. Merrshika was starting to feel the need to name the two small vessels.

After a quick tour of the relatively small inside of the vessel to familiarize her with the presence of those new people onboard, Merrrshika showed the pilots how to tie themselves securely in the seats at the port bow of the shuttle.

"Seats and straps?" Murphy asked. "I don't mean to be offensive to our kind nice shuttle here, but isn't that kind of primitive?"

Merrrshika smiled in an indulgent manner. "When shomeone shtarrtles you, what happens to yourr abdominal musscles?" she asked.

He blinked a few times in confusion, nevertheless strapping himself up as she had shown earlier. "I'm not too sure. I guess I must tighten them."

The Mirrresh nodded. "My point is that you arre not too surre. You shee, it'sh kind of the shame thing with internal grravity for shuttles – when they shtarrtle, or jump to warrp, or shtrrain to do something elshe that is difficult, they have trrouble maintaining conshtant grravity. Henche the shtrrapsh."

The pilot nodded. "That makes sense. It's just that with mechanical vessels, we're not used to that kind of limitation."

"Rright," Merrrshika said. "But you get to conshtantly rreprrogrram shubrroutines and do physical diagnoshticsh, while an orrganic shuttle will jusht plainly tell you when she's feeling out of shorrtsh."

"That is a valid point," Tuvok observed. "Each type of vessels presents its advantages and disadvantages. It is logical to assume that pairing the two will offer possibilities of enriching complementarity."

Merrrshika, after a grateful smile to the Vulcan, sat in the pilot saddle and the female shuttle had an small, anxious and excited shiver that nevertheless made everyone's teeth clatter. The Mirrresh reassured her shuttle with a few warm thoughts before she ordered her to depressurize the docking bay and open the doors. The vessel complied shakily. The pilot activated a beacon that marked her as one of _Voyager_'s shuttles in a test flight and asked to kindly keep a reasonable distance from her. The shuttle exited the docking bay slowly and hesitantly, backing in a few times before Merrrshika managed to coax her into exiting into the wide open emptiness of space, filled with a moving, turning, buzzing swarm of vessels of all sizes and colours moving in all directions. The male, for his part, far from being intimidated, hungered to go out, but a firm order from Merrrshika assured him that going outside right now was not an option.

It was a very boring test flight. Merrrshika merely guided the female once around the gas giant at impulse speed, just to let her see a few inorganic vessels flying about and let her know they were not a threat. The shuttle shied a few times in fear, but nothing worthy of much notice, aside from the fact that the pilots quickly learned to tighten their stomach muscles at the onset of such an abrupt movement. The gravity tended to get mixed up inside the shuttle when she was on the verge of panic.

Once back inside _Voyager_'s hold, Merrrshika thought she heard the shuttle's equivalent of a sigh of relief. Merrrshika patted her on the spine a few times to congratulate her on her exemplary test flight, then had the team disembark so the male could get the same kind of exercise.

The male shuttle rolled around a bit at the unaccustomed feel of all those feet onboard, but he quickly calmed down when Merrrshika touched him on a sensitive spot, not hurting him but just distracting his attention. The male – which she really felt like calling Pshi – snorted when she sat down in the pilot saddle. When she asked him to turn around towards the gaping doors, he wheeled about abruptly, almost colliding with the female shuttle in his hurry. Merrrshika sternly ordered him to calm down, and she clearly felt his grudging apologies.

He shot out of the docking bay at full impulse speed, seriously threatening to send a few nearby plates of the hull flying because of the vibration induced by the thrusters, despite Merrrshika who pulled with all her weight at the reins to slow him down. She quickly decided to take him up in the higher atmosphere where there were less vessels to risk a collision with. Her test flight beacon was still activated, but seeing the erratic and aggressive way the shuttle flied about and veered around, everyone would have kept a respectable distance even without the warning.

That test flight was considerably less boring than the last, with Merrrshika forced to let the male run loose for a good long time before he exhausted enough of his energy to be willing to get down to work. She used a bit of his exuberant violence to try different evasive manoeuvres, but was forced to stop quickly because of the shuttle's exhaustion and the poor future pilots who felt like vomiting all over themselves, strapped in their seats as they were. The male docked back inside of _Voyager_'s hull with a tired, if satisfied, sigh. Merrrshika petted him on the spine too, before she went back to the female.

She took her out a second time, but this time had her come in and out of so many hangars that she was too exhausted to display fear towards an unknown environment anymore. When she docked back inside the safety of the cargo hold, she was as spent by her nervousness as the male had been by all his manoeuvres.

After that, seeing the male was much too tired to be taken out a second time, she let the shuttles and pilots rest. The shuttles huddled together in the cargo bay, drowsing. Shuttles could not completely sleep, as they had to maintain bearing, environmental controls and sensor scans, but they entered a sort of resting phase during which they lowered activity and concentrated on restoring functions. That amount of time was no more than four or five hours for each Mirrresh day. The shuttles would need about four hours to recuperate, and the future pilots had just finished their shifts. It would be some time before either was available to fill Merrrshika's time.

She had nothing to do in the meanwhile.

She therefore decided to go see Seven of Nine. With some surprise, Merrrshika had discovered that she fit remarkably well with the borg woman when it came to programming and hacking. Seven was at the same time a good student and a good teacher; she knew an incredible number of codes, algorithms and protocols that Merrrshika had never even heard of. On the other hand, Seven did not have any hacking notions. The borg knew only one way to hack, and it was assimilation. They had never managed to assimilate a Mirrresh hacker for the simple reason that they had never visited the region of space Merrrshika's people inhabited. Moreover, Merrrshika had proven that it was not impossible to hijack borg vessels, as long as one simply ignored their borg security protocols and shortcut it with alien code.

Even if Seven knew nothing of what was routine hacking methods for Merrrshika, she was an ace in programming. Merrrshika had decreed that she was the best suited on board to assist her if she needed help in crashing an attempt to hack _Voyager_. Kim was not bad either, but since he was in the pilot team, there was a change he would be busy outside, with the female shuttle, in the case of a battle involving hackers.

That day, Merrrshika learned from Seven a sort of informatics derivation invented by a species of Ursidae-like people whom she had never heard of, and she showed Seven the basic functions of gersk'al code. The two of them talked and tried different simulations on a terminal, previously – and prudently – isolated from _Voyager_'s main computer. They worked at it for nearly five hours, until Merrrshika decided that the humans had slept enough and that the shuttles had drowsed enough.


	13. First Ventures

_OK, I know updates come ridiculously slowly, but please, everyone, consider this chapter a proof I will continue updating this story until it is done. And please, leave reviews, that might encourage me to translate chapters faster :)_

Chapter XIII. First ventures

After spending so much time discussing the technicalities of a new informatics language, Merrrshika was ready for some action and, after their long nap, so were the shuttles. The new pilots were only too happy to come along, even if they had been pulled out of bed again.

During her second outing with the shuttles, Merrrshika tested warp speed with the male shuttle. _Voyager_'s beta-shift pilot, Brad Murphy, was accompanying them at the helm of Neelix's vessel in case they lost themselves with the unsteady trajectory computational skills of a fledgling shuttle.

Sitting heavily in the pilot saddle to steady the male shuttle, Merrrshika guided him into an orbit at half impulse so he could warm up. After that, she pointed his nuzzle towards the empty space away from the gas giant; the air traffic controller had liberated a wide takeoff channel, having been warned that Merrrshika was doing her first attempt at warp speed with a young organic vessel. Merrrshika warned her crew to brace themselves; they all sat tightly fastened, but they gripped the armrests of their seats harder. The Mirrresh gripped the saddle smugly with her knees, grit her teeth in anticipation of the shock of effort the vessel would produce to jump at warp speed, and moved her hands slightly. Without letting go of the reins, she pushed her fists at the bottom of the holes where the reins were located; it was the pilot's way of requesting warp speed. Because it was the first time the shuttle was asked this manoeuvre, he had a moment of hesitation; he was willing to comply, but unsure what was expected of him. Merrrshika opened her hands slightly so he would feel her knuckles more sharply. He hesitated still, trying to accelerate at impulse speed, but he was encouraged and held back at the same time by her hands tightening on the reins but her seat encouraging him to go forwards. He could feel no disappointment or satisfaction for his acceleration from his pilot; he tried to accelerate again, but he was already going at maximum impulse speed. When Merrrshika lowered her knees, taking her feet away from the saddle, her weight slid forward in the saddle in a manner that made something click in his mind. On pure instinct he leaped forward through the veil of space and time, firing up a whole array of systems he had never used before. He shot into warp speed with all his will and every motor unity of his body, faster and faster, intoxicated by the feel of space washing over him, of light he raced with, of particles of dust drifting ghostly through him.

Merrrshika laughed from the sheer exuberance of her shuttle at the new sensation, and let him accelerate until _Voyager_'s warp 8. She gently took contact with the saddle with her feet and tightened her hands slightly on the reins. She asked her shuttle to display a navigation trajectory through the pilot's helmet, but he did not respond, probably too absorbed by the new experience of going faster than light itself. Merrrshika could see his speed, though, since it was among the standard bearings always displayed in the helmet, and she knew that Neelix's vessel could not keep up with them at this speed and the male did not have a space chart of this sector in memory. If they went too far from the gas giant, they would be truly lost.

Merrrshika started pulling on the reins more firmly, but got no response. She combined the simple command with the emphasis carried by slipping her weight back in the saddle. Still no reaction. She pulled harder on the reins, pinching the sensible organs between the claws of her thumb and forefinger. He did not slow down, but at least the sensor readings flashed back on in the pilot's helmet. Merrrshika's eyes flew over the readings; they were too far from Neelix's vessel and the shuttle was still accelerating, going at warp 9.5 now.

Merrrshika tried to reach the shuttle via telepathy, but he was too concentrated on his maverick acceleration to notice her worrying thoughts.

"Hold on, guys, thish is going to be a bumpy rride," she warned her team.

She took a steadying, readying breath, and inclined her head back the farthest she could, hoping the helmet would keep her from being ejected out of the saddle. The claws of her feet went through the thin soles of her shoes to sink into the saddle's stirrups. She gripped the sensor organs of the reins with all her strength and pulled all she was worth. That managed to get the shuttle's attention, but he obstinately refused to slow down. She took a breath and held it. She gave a brutal twist of the hips to the left, pulled the reins in that direction violently, and the male was startled out of warp and fell into impulse speed doing a barrel roll. The sudden movement and the total release of internal gravity and environmental systems ripped her claws from the stirrups and had Merrrshika saddling thin air for a split second before the male reasserted his internal systems and she heavily fell back into the saddle. The male finished his barrel roll and gave a formidable braking, but he immediately started a series of barrel rolls and about-turns, rolling in all directions, completely disoriented. With her feet having lost their hold on the stirrups, even her usually steady seat and her pilot helmet could not hold her into the saddle. She went flying after one particularly nasty flip in internal gravity accompanying a particularly spectacular barrel roll. The shuttle was starting a vertical climb or an about-turn, she could not tell. The mixed-up gravity made the floor appear fifty degrees steep and slanting thirty degrees to the left. Merrrshika flew off the saddle, collided with the floor painfully and rolled down the bridge until she hit the wall marking the separation with the living quarters. She lay on the wall as though it was the floor. Her thigh screamed in pain in a way that suggested a torn ligament, her hands and arms bore bloody scratches from the male's bites in a panicky attempt not to throw her out of the saddle, and her head hurt from having hit the wall rather violently. Hopefully, the male apparently regained his senses and stopped in the middle of his vertical climb, before slowly brining the artificial gravity to its standard angle, directly beneath the floor. Merrrshika fell on her hands and knees, delicate ringing sounds in her ears. After a while she was conscious of her apprentices having unfastened themselves and flocking around her, asking her if she was alright.

She slowly stood up, wincing in pain because of her thigh, which was already swelling. She ordered her team rather brusquely to go tie themselves up again. They seemed to consider her angry tone a good sign, because they complied without argument. She went back to the front with difficulty and sat on the pilot seat side-saddled. She stuck her head into the pilot seat and had to calmly stroke the shuttle's backbone for nearly ten minutes before his guilt was alleviated and he was calm enough to display the sensor readings.

"Neelix'sh vesshel is shixteen minutesh frrom herre," she announced without removing the pilot's helmet.

"_Sixteen_ minutes?", Mike exclaimed in obvious amazement. "How fast were we going?"

"Warrp 9.9998 at the end."

"This little shuttle can go as fast as that?" Harry questioned in disbelief.

"Yesh. Not forr long and they arre tirred afterrwarrds, but they can go as fasht as that."

There were some excited murmurs.

"The great force we feel when he is going into warp or when he gets out of it, is it normal?" Mike asked. "Why did you fall off the saddle?"

"The grreat forrche is norrmal forr young orr old vesshels," Merrrshika explained. "They arre too busy contrrolling the warrp corre to contrrol the interrnal envirronnement. I fell off the shaddle because he didn't want to get out of warrp; I had to make him 'fall' out of warrp shpeed with a hip move that got me out of the shaddle. Afterr that, the dechelerration forrche did the rresht. It happens often with young vesshels."

They started discussing the warp speed they had reached with so small a vessel, wondering how he could produce a sufficient amount of energy, and how he managed to maintain his structural integrity, and some other things Merrrshika could not care to listen to with her hurting leg. She interrupted them.

"Can shomebody take a trricorrderr and shee if therre's shomething wrrong with me?"

Kim removed his harness, grabbed a tricorder and walked up to her with concern. She glared at him with her worst-tempered look, even though she suspected he could not see it clearly because of his filtering glasses.

"Minor commotion," he announced. "Minor cuts on arms and hands. And…" He gazed at her in stunned silence a while. "…a torn muscle in the thigh."

"Can you rrepearr the muschle damage?"

"I don't have surgery instruments here, and I'm not a surgeon," Kim protested. "I can just give you first aid."

"Then, please, do sho," Merrrshika ordered, "otherrwise I won't be able to pilot back to _Voyagerr_."

"You're in no condition!" Kim protested.

"Arre you offerring me an alterrnative? No one but me can do it and we'rre _monthsh_ away at impulshe shpeed!"

There was a silence. After a while, Mike asked timidly, "Couldn't you let me try?"

"No, she cannot," Tuvok declared. "You have not received a proper training. In fact, you never did try to pilot a shuttle, not even in simulation."

They turned back to Merrrshika.

"Moving is going to be painful," Kim informed her. "Generally, after such an injury you have to be immobilized for a week, at least."

She chortled.

"That'sh ok. Actually, I had figured the 'hurrting' parrt already. Please, now, give me firrsht aid."

Kim had just finished administering his first aid when Neelix's vessel dropped out of warp near them. Merrrshika, still sitting side-saddled, put on the pilot's helmet and directed the communication to the main screen. Tuvok understood her unspoken request and informed Brad of the outcome of the flight test.

After transmitting the coordinates where they could re-enter impulse speed safely near the gas giant, the other vessel cut the communication. Merrrshika transformed the coordinates in units the shuttle could understand and mentally dictated them in the pilot helmet. The male acknowledged them and was hit by the realization of how far it was. When she saddled herself correctly again, she felt his hesitation. She slid her hands down until she gripped the reins, but it was a tight conduct; the male was trying to delay the moment where he would have to try warp speed again. She ordered him to turn around and pointed him vaguely in the direction of the gas giant they needed to go back to.

When she leaned forward slightly, the shuttle already started expressing its fear and discontent. Throwing a pilot was a fearful event for all organic shuttles; throwing a pilot on the first real outing was worse. The male was scared half to death at the idea of going back to warp speed. Merrrshika reassured him lengthily at half-impulse speed. When they crossed a gas and dust cloud, she let him fill his fuel tanks and take some for the female shuttle. After that, she requested that he shift to warp speed.

She almost had to sink her claws into the warp command to push him at the appropriate speed, but he eventually did. As soon as the transition shock was over, Merrrshika took control of the reins again and pushed him with all the strength of her calves to stabilize his speed, because the male hesitated between impulsion and warp, which was extremely uncomfortable. He had learned his lesson from the first flight, however, and remained attentive to his pilot. He showed immediately upon being asked the trajectory and sensor readings. Merrrshika corrected the trajectory slightly, then let him ride on, only encouraging and congratulating him by her pilot helmet.

A safe distance from the merchant world _Voyager_ orbited, Merrrshika sat back heavily in the saddle and pulled on the reins to request that he fall back to impulse speed. She was hanging on with her claws in the stirrups and her legs wrapped tightly around the saddle. She had to pull with all her weight for the male to drop out of warp. As soon as he was at impulse speed, the male stopped precipitously. Everyone was lifted from their seat and tightened their harness under the artificial braking force the male generated.

When she heard a voice in her pilot's helmet, Merrrshika realized she must have passed out a few seconds.

"Shorry, I misshed that, I was checking shome alerrtsh," she said. "Could you rrepeat please?"

"Clear space to _Voyager_, Merrshika of the lambda flyer," the air traffic controller announced jovially. "How was that flight test?"

"Awful!" Merrrshika laughed back. "The nexsht one will be betterr."

"Let's hope so! Good fly, Merrshika."

"Thanksh. Have a good day."

She guided the shuttle to _Voyager_; exhausted by his long venture and his adventure, he did not put up much of a fight. He parked himself up calmly in the cargo bay and emptied his reserves of gas and dust so the female could feed. Merrrshika informed _Voyager_ not to depressurize the cargo bay for a few hours so the female could help herself to some fuel, and asked for a sight-to-sight transport for her and her three novice pilots. Once they were all in the teleportation room, she asked to be teleported directly to the infirmary; she did not have the courage to walk there.

It took a good hour to the Doctor to repair the damage due to her commotion and cuts and bruises. He was about to treat the muscle of her thigh when Harry came in. It was back to her having glasses, but not him. So she _could_ now glare at him with her worst-tempered look.

"Thish plache is shupposed to be a private," she reminded him.

"I just wanted to know if I made the good choice using delta vib instead of alpha to rearrange your muscle tissue," Harry said innocently.

"Very good choice," the Doctor approved.

"Thank you," Kim answered with a mocking smile.

He sat on the bed next to where Merrrshika was lying.

"So. How are you feeling?" he asked with solicitude.

"My head is clearr, but my leg gives me a hell of a pain at the moment."

"I'm sorry for you," he said sincerely. "I thought maybe you would like some help to go back to your quarters, after the surgery, if the Doctor lets you go."

"He _betterr_ let me go," the Mirrresh answered with a predator smile uncovering her sharp teeth.

The Doctor did let her go, but had recommendations, of course.

"I strongly recommend that you accept Mister Kim's help to go to your quarters, in case the surgery does not hold. You must also come back to see me tomorrow…" The Doctor paused thoughtfully. "…tomorrow or whatever day it is when you wake up, for a follow-up check on your surgery."

On the way to Merrrshika's quarters, Harry and Merrrshika crossed paths with Tom who could not help but mock his friend.

"Hey Harry, I always knew you were envious of my nurse position!"

Harry chuckled embarrassedly and went on, shaking his head. Merrrshika found him particularly thoughtful when he opened the door for her and requested minimal light to the computer. She went in her apartment and, before she seated herself, she asked if he would like something to drink. He declined and she took a seat in her armchair. Harry lingered on the threshold and scratched his eyebrow nervously.

"Would… Would you mind if I stay for a while?"

She smiled.

"I wouldn't mind at all. But not too long, it'sh been a long day forr me and I'm a little tirred."

"Of course," Harry answered precipitously, taking a step backwards into the corridor. "Excuse me I can…"

"It'sh ok," Merrrshika repeated. "Take a sheat or at leasht take anotherr shtep to let the doorr close."

Harry chuckled and took two steps forward. He sat down a little timidly into another armchair facing hers. She had a good enough idea of the reason why he was there; it was making her slightly nervous too, but not as much as him, it seemed.

"I wanted to know," she began, but stopped short, frowning at him in the relative darkness.

"Yes?", he asked hesitantly.

"Shorry, I was trrying to figurre out when my next evening will fit into one of yourr days. I was going to ashk you out forr dinnerr," she pointed out with a mischievous lift of her eyebrows.

He was more than a little transfixed by her playful smile.

"Sure!" he answered a little late.

Her sharp intake of breath made them both explode in laughter.

"You almosht shcared me."

"Sorry. I guess it's late for me too, my reflexes aren't as quick as they should be… I really should go and let you rest."

She walked him to her door, but stopped him with a hand on his elbow.

"Sho, I guessh that in fourrty hourrs it won't be evening forr you," she said with disappointment. That emotion in her voice made him feel very warm inside.

"Yes, yes, it is," he corrected, "I have a night shift tomorrow, so it's going to be evening in about forty hours."

"Ah ok," she agreed with a relieved smile. "Then I'll shee you in fourrty hourrs?"

"Yeah. I'll come here to pick you up, if you wish?"

"Ok, but I chose wherre we go forr dinerr," she declared.

There was a way she looked at him… He suddenly became aware that he was holding his breath and his head felt light. He let his breath out slowly. Merrrshika was busy herself catching back her breath, so she did not notice.

"So," Kim said, ready to step out, "see you…"

That is when she put a hand on each of his shoulders and lifted herself on tiptoe to plant a soft kiss on his cheek. She was about to repeat "see you" when she caught sight of the expression on his face and froze.

His hand floated up until it closed gently around her upper arm. Because of the feeble light, Harry could see her eyes through her glasses, and he could not stop gazing into them.

"Merrshika?"

He was getting better at rolling the "r"s of her name, she noted with a distant part of her mind. Most of her brain was busy with answering the question in his voice.

"Yesh," she whispered, taking half a step towards him.

Then he slowly lowered his head and kissed her on the lips. Still a little timidly. He felt her giggle against his mouth and pulled away slowly. She had a hand on the middle of his chest.

"You know what?" she asked, giggling.

"What?" he answered in a daze. He still held her in his arms.

"We, I mean, the Mirrresh, we don't kissh. I was shtill wonderring what it felt like."

He laughed. "And?" he inquired.

"Grrreat," she purred with a wink.

He gently held her tighter a while, before he let out a sigh, reminding himself forcefully that she was undoubtedly very tired. He kissed her on the cheek and took a step back.

"Doctor would kill me if he knew I'm keeping you from resting. Sleep well."

"You too," she answered, letting go of his hand reluctantly.

After a last smile, he stepped out of her room and the brutal light of the corridor chased her farther in her room. Her eyes were shut tightly in an attempt to keep the offensive light away from her sensitive retinas, and she almost fell over a small table in her stumbling retreat. That table, after inflicting a bruise on Harry's shin, now had a second victim: Merrrshika's knee. The door to her apartment closed at that moment, and Merrrshika opened her eyes again. She removed her glasses' mobile emitter and put it on the small table next to her bed. She fell back down on her bed, purring a little, smiling a lot. She rolled up cosily in her sheets and fell asleep.


	14. Zeta's First Warp Flight

_Hey. It's been a while, but here is another chapter. And there's more where that came from. I swear I will get this story to the end. I aim for a chapter every two or three weeks from now on and, unless another crazy project takes hold of me, I should be able to hold up, all my other writing projects being completed and in the "revision" phase._

_So I hope somebody's still hanging on to this, and I'd greatly appreciate a few reviews!_

Chapter 14. Zeta's first warp flight

When Merrrshika woke up the next morning after a good and very long night of sleep (even by Mirrresh standards), she could hardly believe she had felt like rolling on the shuttle's floor in pain a mere fifteen hours earlier. After a mandatory visit to the sickbay, where the Doctor confirmed she was perfectly fine, she called the bridge and asked to meet the captain, who invited her to her ready room.

Just when she arrived to the top deck and stepped out of the turbolift, Harry came in. They exchanged an enthusiastic and breathless smile, but merely wished each other good morning and continued their separate directions. Tuvok gave Merrrshika an inquisitive glance with an arched eyebrow when she passed by his console.

"Keep yourr mind off mine, Vulcan!" she exclaimed good-naturedly.

"I assure you, Merrrshika, I did not intend to read your mind," he denied stonily.

Merrrshika did not attempt to strike up an argument, but merely shot him a crooked smile. Then she turned to Kathryn.

"Captain, we have to name the shuttles, now that they've taken theirr firrsht warrp flight."

"Alright," Kathryn agreed with a smile, "but is it that urgent?"

"Fairrly," Merrrshika assured. "They hesitate to define theirr identity and it'sh not good forr theirr link with a futurre crrew."

"Alright then!" Janeway exclaimed. "Do what is necessary. Do you want some suggestions?"

"In fact, I alrready have an idea, but shinche you'rre the captain I thought I'd ashk yourr opinion."

"May we participate in the debate?" Tom chimed in.

"Of courrshe," Merrrshika agreed. "I thought of Epshilon forr the male and Zeta forr the female. I know yourr otherr shuttle is called the Delta Flyerr, sho Epshilon and Zeta fit in well. And Grreeksh werre among the firrsht schientishtsh on yourr planet. A grreek letterr would be a good name forr the two firrsht mirrresh shuttles of the alpha quadrrant."

"Sounds like a good idea and nice names," Tom approved with his characteristic smile.

"I agree," Janeway concurred.

"These names neither constitute a systematic system nor are they innovative," Tuvok protested.

"Well, Alpha, Beta and Gamma could be theirr firrsht childrren, if you want a shyshtematic shyshtem, Lieutenant-Commander Tuvok," Merrrshika countered slyly with a wink, invisible behind her sunglasses.

"Voted?" the Captain asked around.

"Approved!" Paris exclaimed.

"Perfect," B'Elanna declared.

"Agreed," the ops operator concurred.

"Tuvok's outnumbered," Tom observed gleefully.

"Well then, agreed, the names of the two new _Voyager_'s shuttles are now officially Epsilon and Zeta," Kathryn declared theatrically.

Merrrshika begged to be given permission for another warp test flight even though Kathryn insisted that she was in no condition, recuperating from a surgery as she was. Merrrshika insisted until the Captain sent her to the Doctor and let _him_ try and convince her to stay put a few days. Merrrshika sighed, knowing the Doctor much harder to sway than the Captain, and found him signing opera in the sickbay. He went straight from Monteverdi's _Orfeo_ to asking what the medical emergency was with a disconcerting absence of transition.

"Therre's no emerrgency, Doctorr, don't worry," Merrrshika explained. "It'sh jusht that Captain Janeway ashked me to come to shee you to make surre I'm okay forr anotherr warrp flight."

"You mean, with one of your shuttles?" the Doctor worried.

"Yesh, why not? Zeta – that'sh the female's new name – Zeta didn't get to trry the warrp yet. She'll prrobably be a lot easierr on me than the male."

"In any case, it's out of the question," the Doctor stated decisively.

Merrrshika instinctively took on her most menacing stance and advanced with all her feline vigour on the Doctor, who stepped back automatically before he remembered he was a hologram and she was his crewmate.

"Why would that be?" she hissed. "I am perrfectly fine; I'm not even shtiff! Why should I washte my time doing nothing when thish is my only chanche in weeksh – Mirrresh weeksh! – to trrain the shuttles?"

"Well, you just recovered from a major surgery," the Doctor reminded, "so you should be resting for a while."

"It'sh alrready been fifteen hourrs." She took a breath and her stance changed from that of a prowling panther to that of a pleading kitten. "Doctorr, thish is rreally imporrtant. I don't have much time to trrain the shuttles and they'rre alrready a little old forr theirr firrsht warrp flight. Delaying theirr trraining again could sherrioushly comprromise theirr fighting shkills. I'm not planning on doing any fantasy manoeuvrres! I jusht need yourr authorrisation forr a shimple warrp flight."

The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes, but nevertheless took a datapad and entered his authorisation in it. He kept an eye on Merrrshika with an air at the same time severe and mocking, and finally handed her the electronic device.

"Alright, since this seems a life-threatening matter, you can go. But just a nice quiet warp flight, nothing more. I also order you to come here after your flight for a check-in."

"Thank you, Doctorr," she said, enthusiastically snatching the datapad from his hands.

She went back to the bridge and proudly produced the authorisation the Captain required.

"Of Harry, Tuvok, Murrphy and Robinshon, who could be joining me forr the next warrp trry?" Merrrshika asked when Kathryn handed her back the datapad.

"It's Harry but Murphy?" Janeway remarked with a subtle smile.

"Murrphy, Harry, Mike or Kim, what'sh the differrenche?" Merrrshika inquired uncomprehendingly.

There were a few exchanged glances of incredulity around the bridge.

"What?" Merrrshika insisted in the growing silence.

"Using the first name of a person is more familiar than using their last name," Kathryn explained.

"Oh… Sho I should not be using theirr firrsht names at all, rright?"

"Well, it depends on how close you feel to these people," Tom remarked with his usual double-meaning.

Merrrshika played the one too naïve to understand what the innuendo had been about.

"Sho, who can come with me?" she insisted.

Chakotay consulted the display in his seat's armrest.

"Kim is sleeping, Tuvok and Murphy are right here and Robinson is off duty, but he seems to be hanging around in the mess hall. So I guess you have at least Tuvok and Murphy and maybe Robinson if he agrees."

So Merrrshika left the bridge in the company of Tuvok and Murphy, and when they talked to Robinson, he followed them enthusiastically. When they arrived in the docking bay, Epsilon backed against the far wall, the ram above his cabin lifted in a defensive stance.

"He's afrraid," Merrrshika remarked sadly. "He needs anotherr flight."

The three training pilots looked at her incredulously and Tuvok spoke for them, exposing with his trademark Vulcan restraint what they all thought.

"It is unadvisable to fly with him again, since you have not fully recovered from your surgery."

Merrrshika lifted her hands and rolled her eyes.

"I thought I hearrd the Doctorr therre forr a minute!" she exclaimed. "It'sh even lessh advisable to let thish poorr little shuttle be shcarred to death wonderring if I'm angrry at him! Nexsht time he won't even let me in the shaddle if I don't rride him now."

Tuvok lifted an eyebrow, weighing the logic of that statement, and finally nodded his head and bowed to her wisdom. Merrrshika stepped onboard Epsilon first, and waited a moment in the pilot cabin, while the pilot apprentices strapped themselves down in their seats. After Epsilon had calmed slightly, Merrrshika settled down in the saddle and put her head in the pilot's helm.

"I could use a little of that vulcan immunity to fearr rright about now," she muttered to herself.

She took a breath and took her hands towards the reins. Already a dozen alarms in violet and ultraviolet flashed in the helm; the cardiac rhythm and energy consumption of the shuttle were abnormally high due to stress, which compromised life support.

Zeta, feeling Epsilon's fear, sided with him and kept position slightly ahead of him to reassure him. Merrrshika spoke to Epsilon through the pilot's helm until he calmed down enough to stabilise life support. She then led him outside and let him relax by guiding him through a few orbits at half impulse. Then, she directed him through a series of straight lines, going back and forth, until he stopped trying to slant on one side or the other, which rendered the transition to warp speed impossible. The apprentice pilots, seated in the back, were bored to tears long before Epsilon stopped resisting warp speed.

In the middle of one of the straight lines, Merrrshika asked suddenly, and a little brusquely, the transition to warp speed. She held onto the saddle with knees and arms; Epsilon did not expect her sudden request in the least. She took him by surprise well enough that he jumped to warp immediately, before he even realized what he had done. When he did, however, he frenetically tried to slow down to impulse, but Merrrshika pushed him and pushed him until he stabilized his speed to warp two. She let him relax there a few minutes, then slowed down to impulse and proceeded to make the transition from impulse to warp and back again until her pilots were again bored to tears, but Epsilon now changed speed willingly. After that nearly three-hours flight, Merrrshika docked Epsilon, shaking with exhaustion, back within _Voyager_ next to Zeta.

At odds with Epsilon's, Zeta's first warp flight went extremely well. As soon as the shuttle found herself out of orbit and far from its bustling mechanical activity, she relaxed. As a consequence, Merrrshika slid down a fair ten centimetres in the hollow that just appeared between the two previously cramped vertebrae forming the pilot's saddle, and blood could now circulate freely all the way down to her hands and back up. After a few circles and spirals at full impulse to warm her engines correctly, Merrrshika pressed her hands to the warp controls, and Zeta slid into warp propulsion seamlessly. However, she had completely forgotten the internal environmental systems in the meanwhile and everyone onboard felt a numbing shock when they sped to warp. Zeta regained control of life support quickly enough, and displayed on command the astrometric map and flight plan. She willingly adjusted her speed to Merrrshika's commands, and even sprinted to an astonishing warp 9.99997. Merrrshika displayed the information available to her in the pilot's helmet on the main viewscreen, so that the pilots could follow her manoeuvres and have something to watch. When they saw the speed the shuttle could muster, they clapped and exclaimed excitedly among themselves, which filled Zeta with jubilation.

They went back to _Voyager_ in the same easy fashion and, apart from a few nervous shivers when ships passed close by, Zeta behaved with exemplary reliability. Merrrshika scratched her spine affectionately a long while and the shuttle purred happily. Janeway learned from three excited – right, two excited and one logically optimistic – officers the maximum speed Zeta had reached. Kathryn declared it was very interesting information, and that the shuttles would prove extremely useful for survey missions, because they could speed past _Voyager_ and survey the coming space without the need for the ship to slow down.

However, once Merrrshika had finished caring for the shuttles, entered her reports, taken a shower, changed clothes and passed by sickbay so the doctor could confirm she was recovering correctly, there were still thirty hours left before her date with Harry, and it was the middle of the night for every other crew onboard. Kathryn would be sleeping soundly, Neelix must have just gotten into bed after cleaning up the mess hall after supper, Harry must be in the middle of a usually boring night shift, Seven's conscious mind must be deeply immersed in its regeneration cycles, and so there was no one to kill boredom with.


	15. Better than a Cancelled Date

_See? I'm picking up momentum here! I'll be keeping up the rhythm, I promise:)_

Chapter 15. Better than a cancelled date

Merrrshika had been sitting idly on the ground of holodeck two for over an hour when Tuvok, Murphy and Robinson showed up. Harry's absence because of his night shift was the result of a mistake in the assignation of duties, which had made him the only available senior officer for the last night shift on the bridge. In exchange for Harry missing the morning's lesson, the first officer had promised that he would be given a shift to train with her before the next session with the others.

"Good… morrning I think everrybody!", Merrrshika began enthusiastically, too happy that her boredom was over.

"Good morning, instructor," Tuvok greeted her.

She noted his used of the title "instructor" and was rather flattered that the Vulcan acknowledged her rank in this manner.

"Well, as you know it, it'sh yourr firrsht shimulation with the shuttle prrogrram. Please put yourr shafety wearr."

They put on their riding hat and so did Merrrshika. She then opened her program, noting with amusement that Tuvok tried to understand the workings of her security protection, but she gave him a crooked smile and finished quickly so he had no time to figure it out.

Merrrshika designated Tuvok to go first, because he was the highest ranking officer and, being Vulcan, was immune to stress or pressure. He would be less likely to feel nervous than the others. The pilots strapped themselves in their usual seats and Merrrshika joined them. Tuvok sat down in the pilot seat and half-turned, awaiting Merrrshika's order. She had implemented in her program a holographic projection of the pilot, and when she activated it, a three-dimensional image of Tuvok materialized in the air. The holographic Tuvok floated there without the visual hindrance of the saddle and helmet, so she would better see his every move.

"You can take contrrol of the rreins," Merrrshika said. "Rrememberr that thish is the shimulation based on Zeta's rreactions. Be niche and gentle."

"Yes, instructor," Tuvok answered, his head in the pilot's helmet.

The shuttle startled, and the holoprogram even reproduced the shiver of artificial gravity that shook real shuttles.

"To prrevent herr frrom doing that, you can touch the shaddle beforre you take the rreins," Merrrshika instructed.

"Understood," Tuvok assented.

"And you can shtop to anshwerr like a Shtarrfleet officher, I prromishe I won't tell the captain."

The two other apprentices chuckled and Tuvok simply ignored her.

"Take herr out of the carrgo bay. Rrememberr to hold herr with yourr leg while she turrns."

The turn went very well, to Merrrshika's surprise. She would have expected some hesitations or adjustments, but the shuttle pivoted in a single movement. Merrrshika observed, thanks to the holographic projection of Tuvok, that he put his leg at the right place with the exact pressure.

"Make thrree orrbitsh at minimum impulshe, balanching herr frrom shide to shide to familiarrize yourrshelf with the degrree of shupporrt she needs frrom yourr hands."

"Hi."

After an orbit and a half, Tuvok had the commands well in hand, so Merrrshika let him make a few spirals, dives and glides. He managed very well, even though he had a tendency to move his weight to the right and moved his head in small jerks in the pilot's helm. After an hour of excellent work, she declared the lesson over and congratulated him. He had not been thrown, which was commendable.

Murphy tried next. Merrrshika let him pilot Zeta's simulation, even though she believed he would probably end up piloting Epsilon. Murphy held himself in the saddle by squeezing his legs and asked manoeuvres a little rudely. Merrrshika constantly reminded him to be gentler, but she did not begrudge him his brusqueness, because she knew breaking the habit of an impulsive Walendorf would take time. However, Zeta seemed of a different mind, because she ended up so exasperated that she violently shook and threw Murphy out of the saddle.

After Murphy climbed back in the saddle to make peace with Zeta, Robinson took his place. He tended to be heavy on the reins, a habit he had acquired with Oural. Zeta protested by constantly contracting and relaxing the space around the reins. Each time she crushed Robinson's hands, he stopped pulling on the reins, but he nevertheless came back to it sooner or later. Aside from that and the fact that he rounded his back too much, he managed well. However, because of his round back, his seat suffered; so, when a mechanical vessel suddenly dropped from warp speed right next to them, Zeta turned brusquely and Robinson emptied the stirrups. He went back in the saddle with good humour and peacefully finished his flying lesson.

Since an hour remained to the half shift the pilots dedicated to Merrrshika's training, she decided to go for a short venture with the real shuttles, and brought the pilots with her. She began with Epsilon and made him jump from impulse to warp a few times, fighting against him every time, but at least he began to get the hang of it. After that, she directed Zeta through a complex series of changes of trajectories at impulse to work on her cartographic capabilities and her synthesis images of sensor data.

Once Zeta docked and the shuttle bay pressurized, they exited the hall to find Harry waiting for them besides the turbolift.

"Too bad we won't be there to see how our operations officer is doing piloting that dear Zeta simulation," Murphy mocked while going past him.

"Tuvok's the only one that did not fall," Robinson informed him in turn.

"Good luck, Ensign," Tuvok concluded while going into the turbolift.

Merrrshika smiled at him and said, following the three others, "Rready?"

He nodded and joined them in the turbolift. The three others exited at the bridge, but Merrrshika and Harry stayed in the turbolift a few more decks. After a few seconds of embarrassed silence, Merrrshika spoke up.

"Harry… I'm shorry about thish, it'sh kind of canchelling ourr dinerr."

"I know," Harry sighed. "It's not your fault if there's been a mistake in shift assignations."

"No, but… I could have jusht canchelled the shimulation in yourr case," she added hesitantly, wondering what the humans' attitude was towards absences.

"Computer, halt turbolift," Harry ordered.

He turned to Merrrshika and she took a hasty step back, suddenly afraid to have angered him. Harry took a step towards her, coming uncomfortably close to her, and then he lightly touched her arm.

"Don't worry about that, I understand perfectly. It would have been stupid to cancel it, I would just have been dead weight at the next training. And fairly, it's ok, with all this extra training I'm going to be the best pilot of the bunch," he finished with a sly smile.

She smiled back and ordered the computer to resume. Just when they arrived at the holodeck, Merrrshika held Harry back by his arm and pushed him against the door.

"Jusht one thing beforre we go in therre and rrecorrd the shesshion."

"What is it?", Harry asked with a game smile.

She stepped closer, took his face in her hands and kissed him. After that, she opened the holodeck's doors and launched her program.

Harry flew for an hour and a half, which was slightly longer than the others, but neither he nor Zeta seemed tired. He did not fall off either. He kept his legs, hands and head in the good spots, held his torso upright. In fact, the only fault Merrrshika spotted in his technique was that he lacked flexibility. He tended to ask the manoeuvres with separated and discrete moves of the hands and feet, instead of a global change of posture involving everything from foot to hand, including hips and shoulders. However, at the end, he started losing precision of movement and his concentration lost some sharpness, so Merrrshika pulled him out of the simulation. After closing the program, she congratulated him – though she carefully shut down the recording before personally showing him her appreciation of his performance…

"Well," Harry said after that, with the tone of someone who's about to step out of a room, "if you don't have anything else you want to make me do around the shuttles, I will go back to the bridge and see what I can do for the rest of the shift."

Merrrshika was about to approve when an idea struck her.

"How would you feel about a tesht flight in hyperrshpeed warrp?" she asked.

"Sounds exiting. With Zeta and Epsilon?"

"Jusht Zeta, I alrready know what Epshilon is capable of… But it would rrequirre morre than the rresht of yourr shift, you know, we will go verry fasht, verry farr, sho Zeta will be tirred and will need to rresht forr a while beforre we can come back…"

He watched fondly her triangular sunglasses over her impish smile.

"Oh, that sounds right with me. We will need something to eat and I must ask my first officer first," Harry objected with a falsely Starfleet-protocol look.

"I'm coming with you to ashk the captain." Merrrshika took his arm and followed him to the turbolift.

ooooo

"This was a great idea," Harry approved in a lazy voice, running a hand down her "hair".

The only dormitory onboard Zeta was located at the back of the cockpit. Lacking any permanent inhabitants, there were no cushions upon the hard surface which would have served as bed, but Harry and Merrrshika nevertheless did not mind lying down on it. Merrrshika comfortably leaned against Harry and periodically stretched a hand to a control panel embedded in the wall to her left to check how the gas and dust collection progressed.

"Yeah. Too bad we jusht have about ten minutesh left."

"Never mind, we could do it again tomorrow. With Epsilon, this time? After all, we do have to give the two shuttles the same training."

She laughed and lay back down.

"We'll bring some cushion next time, though," he added.

After that, they went back to _Voyager_ at warp 9.997, slower than on their outward journey because of Zeta's fatigue. They brought back enough gas and dust to feed the two shuttles for many weeks and their snooping around had revealed the location of an asteroid containing dilithium. And they had had a very nice evening. Merrrshika felt happy, but tired. The day had been long by Mirrresh standards.

When they docked, Harry gallantly offered to deliver a report with their new sensor data, and Merrrshika let him. He nevertheless took the time to walk her to her room before he went and acquitted himself of his duties.


	16. Amazing Little Shuttles

Chapter 16. Amazing Little Shuttles

"Doctorr," Merrrshika began, entering sickbay with a determined step.

"Yes, Merrrshika, is everything alright?" he worried.

"Actually, no," she retorted in a bad mood. "I jusht shlept shixhteen hourrs in a rrow. Perrfectly averrage forr a Mirrresh, but thish does not fit at all in a crrew mainly composed of humans. I was wonderring if you could do anything."

The Doctor silently considered a moment the different options offered to him.

"I can try and design a metabolite that will change your internal clock, but you would need an injection every twenty hours or so. I cannot alter your diel cycles definitely."

"Doctorr, I don't carre about having an injection each 'day'. Actually, that would be even betterr; I could shtop the injections when I need to shtay awake longerr…"

"That wouldn't be advisable," the Doctor began. "Changing your metabolism back and forth could…"

Merrrshika smiled predatorily and cut off his recommendations. "Thank you, Doctorr. Call me when you need to tesht that metabolite."

And she exited the sickbay with the same purposeful step.

ooooo

"Captain."

Everyone on the bridge turned around to look at her with an intrigued air, which made her realize she might have been a bit too commandeering.

"Yes?" Janeway said.

"I would like to shpeak with you. Prrivately, please."

"Alright," Kathryn replied, getting up a little worriedly, "let's go to my ready room."

They entered and Janeway offered something to drink, but Merrrshika declined and started pacing back and forth. Kathryn sipped on her black coffee while waiting for Merrrshika to work up the nerve to explain what bothered her.

Suddenly, Merrrshika paused and looked at the captain uncertainly. "Have you everr felt attrracted to Chakotay?" she asked out of the blue.

Kathryn nearly choked on her mouthful of coffee. When she was done coughing, she considered her answer carefully.

"I was never given the chance to explore whatever attraction there might have been between us. We are good friends, but I am the captain on this ship, so it will never be more than that."

"Alrright," Merrrshika said, resuming her pacing, "but let'sh shuppose you would have been attrracted to him, rright frrom the starrt, beforre you even dechided to make him yourr firrsht officherr. Would you have named him firrsht officherr, overr each otherr Shtarrfleet officherr on thish ship, if you had been attrracted to him? Would you have done it, even if you knew he deserrved it?"

Kathryn swirled the coffee in her cup a moment, considering her answer.

"Probably not," she admitted.

Merrrshika sighed and sat down.

"Well, that'sh exactly what I'm about to do with Harry. I need yourr adviche, Captain, I don't know what to do."

Kathryn moved closer to Merrrshika and put a motherly hand on her knee.

"Tell me a little more. What are you trying to decide? Which pilot will be the leader of the organic shuttle team?"

"I'm trrying to dechide who will be the main pilot forr each shuttle. Harry is the besht with Zeta. Well, I shincherely _believe_ he is," she quickly amended, "even though Tuvok might be betterr, but I don't want to shee it, because Harry is giving me shuch a good imprresshion, and I can't shee what'sh good in Tuvok, because I dirrect all my team telepathic abilities at Harry without notiching it, and maybe I'm about to make a mishtake, and maybe if the otherrs think that Tuvok is betterr they will accuse me of having a conflict of interresht and they could…"

"Calm down," Janeway interrupted her. "You think your telepathic abilities are tricking you?

Merrrshika glanced at her with a guilty look.

"No, I don't think they arre, but I'm afrraid it could happen. It'sh harrd to exhplain to non-telepathsh, but I'm beginning to… _feel_ Harry, his opinions and perrcheptions. I don't hearr the otherrs as clearrly as Harry, not even Tuvok who is a telepath. I fearr that each time I _feel_ shome good in Harry, I missh shomething I could _shee_ in the otherrs."

"I think I see what you mean. If you were not… attracted to Harry, you would simply name him Zeta's main pilot without worrying so much about a hypothetical mistake you could make."

She nodded, grateful for the captain's understanding.

"It wouldn't matterr because everrybody, including me, could be surre I did it in good will."

"Maybe I can give you some insight. Try explaining to me what are the good and the bad points of Tuvok and Harry."

Merrrshika complied, exposing the strengths and weaknesses of each pilot, trying to be objective and to omit nothing. She even used the holographic recordings to illustrate the most important points.

"Tuvok'sh worrsht fault is to neverr shtop moving his head," Merrrshika summed up. "It'sh getting on the shuttle's nerrves on the long terrm. Harry's main weaknessh is the rrigidity of his hips. Both arre typical of unexhperrienched rriderrs, and I have to shay on Tuvok'sh behalf that he was the firrsht to run the tesht, and he did sho while the otherrs watched him. But shtill, Harry is technically superriorr, and is morre shpontaneoush in what he prrojectsh, which can be easierr forr a shuttle to underrshtand. Howeverr, Tuvok'sh shelf-contrrol and clarrity could be comforrting forr a frrightful shuttle. I really don't know, Captain."

"I can see your dilemma."

"I think…" Merrrshika hesitated. "To be perrfectly honesht, I have to add shomething elshe on Harry's shide." She paused, wriggling her hands.

"Let's hear it," the captain encouraged her.

"It'sh the way he actsh with me. He's always thoughtful and niche and always shays the rright thing. He's a gentle perrshon and I think that'sh the kind of pilot Zeta needs. Tuvok is niche too, but the telepathic feeling I get frrom him is morre like a shenshe of duty than jusht the verry tendenchy of his hearrt."

Kathryn smiled kindly.

"I think you already made up your mind. And you chose well, if Zeta really needs a thoughtful rider."

Merrrshika lifted her eyes and asked, only half convinced, "Yesh, but would it be rright to favorr Harry, in thish shituation?"

"Well, the captain approved, didn't she?"

The two women exchanged a smile.

ooooo

"Thank you, Doctorr," Merrrshika slurred.

She touched her throat, where the hypospray had vaporised under her skin the metabolite designed to influence her diel cycles. Lulled into carelessness by the absence of pain of the injection, she threw her legs off the bed and instantly felt dizzy.

"Take it easy," the Doctor warned her, "the metabolite might make you feel a little dizzy for the first days. Human days, I mean."

"Oh," Merrrshika whined, "and I'm shupposed to have that lasht warrp flight today, beforre we leave orrbit of the planet."

"I would not recommend it," the Doctor objected diplomatically.

"Well, I'll trry a holodeck shimulation firrsht to shee if I can handle it," Merrrshika said resignedly.

Said simulation confirmed that she could not, in fact, handle a warp flight, because a simple turn almost made her throw up. She was definitely not up to a fight with Epsilon. Making her way to the bridge, she informed Chakotay that she had to cancel the test flight and apologized to Janeway who had had to pull a few strings to get a flight window. She also asked the first officer to be relieved of duty for the day.

She had learned, since she was on board, that the humans' skin paled and became greenish when they felt sick to their stomach. The Mirrresh's fur did not change colour, but their tails tended to move in chaotic moves. Because the Mirrresh usually checked their balance with their tails, its erratic moves mirrored their impaired sense of balance when they experienced dizziness. Even not knowing the finer details of Mirrresh physiology, Chakotay willingly relieved her of duty when he saw how she swayed on her feet.

She spent the morning slouched in a chair, unable to either lie down or stand up. However, her condition improved notably over the afternoon, so she got up, drank her fill of water and ate a little.

Even though she felt out of sorts for three human days, she went back on duty the second day. She merely avoided holodeck acrobatics and was not up to her usual standards of lightning-quick programming. The morning of the fourth day, however, she was back on her paws and ready for some piloting action.

Her pilots had trained intensively during her indisposition, and proudly showed her the holo-recordings of the progress they had accomplished in her absence. To speed up the training, Chakotay assigned the pilots exclusively to training. They spent half their time in holodeck simulations and, the other half of the time, they discussed evasive and offensive manoeuvres, often seconded by Paris and Janeway. Sometimes, the acrobatics suggested by _Voyager_'s pilot were impossible to execute for the organic shuttles, because of fundamental differences in design. However, the organic shuttles could execute surprisingly angled turns by turning and sliding sideways a little, which would be unthinkable for a mechanical vessel unequipped with propulsion capabilities on the entire hull. The shuttles could also modulate the intensity of their shield along the hull to modify the resistance against space, so they could make more abrupt turns or pass more closely to obstacles or ships.

Hearing this unexpected capability, Paris asked, "Couldn't you use that to disable a conventional shield?"

There was a moment of silence while everybody exchanged a look. Then they all started talking at the same time, about how to invert phase, impulsion or intensity of the shuttle's shield to destroy the forcefield of a mechanical vessel upon contact.

After long enthusiastic discussions, they established an attack plan and made their way to holodeck too. They abducted B'Elanna on the way, mercilessly seized the holodeck from the two crewmen sunbathing on a beautiful beach, and proceeded to program the specifications for a confrontation between Zeta and a hirogen vessel.

Before launching the program, the pilots strapped themselves down in their usual seats and B'Elanna and Tom sat in two supplementary seats that had been added to Zeta's usual design. Merrrshika activated the holo diffusion which projected her up in the cockpit behind her, and they started the simulation.

ooooo

"Captain!" B'Elanna exclaimed, bursting unto the bridge, followed by the four pilots, Merrrshika and Tom.

"Seven, you won't believe it!" Merrrshika added.

"It's great, Captain," Murphy compounded.

Before anybody had time to add anything, confusing even more the reason of their enthusiasm, Janeway lifted her hands to stop them.

"Would you mind explaining what's going on?"

They all started at the same time, and stopped immediately. Then Merrrshika gestured Tom to expose his idea and its results to the captain.

"I'll keep it short. One of these little shuttles down there in cargo bay one, can disable our shield in one touch."

Everyone shut up on the bridge, the consoles stopped emitting beeps indicating data entry, and everybody turned around to look at them. Chakotay and Seven hovered closer.

"How?" Chakotay asked.

"The shuttles can modulate the intensity of the shields to be variable along the hull, and even be offline at one place and full at the other," Merrrshika explained. "So, if a shuttle comes touching a phase-based shield with its forward shield at maximum and the bottom onffline, it creates a pulse distortion in the forcefield that shuts it down. It might even burn some relays and controllers in the mechanic vessel. The shield would be offline until the matrix is reset."

"As unlikely as it first appears, this has fair chances of success," Tuvok assented. "A few minutes ago, we ran a simulation with a Hirogen ship we fought against last month. We were able to shut the shield down for six seconds."

"I think what is customary to say under such circumstances is 'wow'," Seven of Nine said with all her customary seriousness.


End file.
